Tom Coghland
Where the Wild Things Are
The Tower Menagerie: Being The Amazing True Story of the Royal Collection of Wild and Ferocious Beasts
By Daniel Hahn
Simon & Schuster 260pp £15.99 order from our bookshop
WHEREASTO DAY THE Thames foreshore at Southwark is home to little more than the rotting carcasses of shopping trolleys, visitors to London 750 years ago might have beheld a giant polar bear roaming the shingle. The bear, one of the earliest inhabitants of the royal menagerie in the Tower of London, was encouraged to sally forth with its keeper and hunt the 'fat and sweet salrnons' of the river.
Since zoos are, in my opinion, best avoided, a volume promising 'a captivating insight' into their origins is not an obviously tempting prospect. But my prejudices were confounded by Daniel Hahn's lively and entertaining new book. The story of the famous collection of wild beasts that existed in the Tower
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'As we examined more and more data from the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters ... we were amazed to find that there is almost never a case for permanently moving people out of the contaminated area after a big nuclear accident.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying
'This problem has dogged Labour’s efforts to become the "natural party of government", a sobriquet which the Conservatives have acquired over decades, despite their far less compelling record of achievement.'
Charles Clarke on Labour's civil wars.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/comrade-versus-comrade
'Lamb has always attracted admirers ... Yet, as Eric G Wilson observes, "Dream-Child" is the first full-scale biography in over a century.'
Edward Weech on the life and work of Charles Lamb.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-man-with-the-golden-pun