Book of Zoo photographs launched
Wednesday 5 December 2012
Four hundred old photographs of London Zoo have been brought together in a new book by a member of the Zoological Society of London council.
The second edition of London Zoo from Old Photographs, 1852 - 1914 by John Edwards has been completely revised and features the earliest known photographs of living birds, fish, giraffe, camel, rhinoceros and extinct species such as the quagga and thylacine.
The photographs which are accompanied by full and detailed captions provide a fascinating window on the vanished world of London Zoo in the Victorian and Edwardian period, when, perhaps more than any other collection, it formed the bridge between primitive menageries which preceded it and the scientifically operated, conservation oriented zoos of the 21st Century.
The book includes all the known photographs of Jumbo the elephant of London Zoo, all the five known photographs of a living quagga, as well as many other extinct or very rare species.
