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Exotic animals were coveted commodities in nineteenth-century Britain. Spectators flocked to zoos and menageries to see female lion tamers and hungry hippos. Helen Cowie examines zoos and travelling menageries in the period 1800-1880, using animal exhibitions to examine issues of class, gender, imperial culture and animal welfare.

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Introduction 1. The Lions of London 2. Zoo, Community and Civic Pride 3. Elephants in the High Street 4. Animals Wholesale and Retail 5. Seeing the Elephant 6. Cruelty and Compassion 7. Dangerous Frolicking 8. In the Lions´ Den Conclusion

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"Cowie situates the flourishing of exotic animal shows in a broader cultural context and assesses its appeal across the social classes. ... Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain is an insightful book - and full of good stories." (Oliver Hochadel, The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 49 (2), June, 2016)

"This book is of significant value for both the insights it offers into animal, social and cultural history and for the questions it provokes. It enlivens our sense of the nineteenth century as a period during which the provision and, to a more uncertain degree, the reception of leisure were transformed, and broadens our understanding of nineteenth-century captive worlds and the brilliant human and non-human beats that prowled within." - Cultural and Social History

"This is a wide-ranging and truly interdisciplinary book. Its main strength is in its broad national coverage. Too often studies of zoos have focused on London alone but Cowie draws examples from across the British Isles ... This is a richly researched monograph written in clear and compelling language. It is a book that is of immense value not only to those interested in the history of animals and leisure, but Victorian and Cultural Studies scholars more genrally." - Journal of Victorian Culture

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Helen Cowie is Lecturer in History at the University of York, UK. She is author of Conquering Nature in Spain and its Empire, 1750-1850 (2011).

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