The Man Who Ate the Zoo: Frank Buckland, forgotten hero of natural history - Hardcover

"Hugely entertaining." (Jeremy Paxman)

"[A] tumultuously entertaining biography... [An] irresistibly engaging book." (Sunday Times)

"A rollicking ride through eccentric Victorian England. Frank Buckland is the most engaging of subjects...Girling's infectious enthusiasm for his subject shines through" (The Times)

"Girling brings to rip-roaring life a fascinating Victorian figure of whom few have ever heard; I so wish I could invite Frank Buckland over for dinner." (Dave Goulson, author of A Sting in the Tale)

"An irresistibly engaging account of the life of the David Attenborough of the Victorian era." (Sunday Times)

"Hugely entertaining."

"[A] tumultuously entertaining biography... [An] irresistibly engaging book."

"A rollicking ride through eccentric Victorian England. Frank Buckland is the most engaging of subjects...Girling's infectious enthusiasm for his subject shines through"

"Girling brings to rip-roaring life a fascinating Victorian figure of whom few have ever heard; I so wish I could invite Frank Buckland over for dinner."

"An irresistibly engaging account of the life of the David Attenborough of the Victorian era."

A lively and fascinating biography of Frank Buckland, ‘the forgotten man of Victorian science’, surgeon, natural historian, bestselling writer and early conservationist – an eccentric giant of his time

Frank Buckland was an extraordinary man – surgeon, naturalist, veterinarian, popular lecturer, bestselling writer, museum curator, and a conservationist before the concept even existed.

Eccentric, revolutionary, prolific, he was one of the nineteenth century’s most improbable geniuses. His life-long passion was to discover new ways to feed the hungry. Rhinoceros, crocodile, puppy-dog, giraffe, kangaroo, bear and panther all had their chance to impress, but what finally – and, eventually, fatally – obsessed him was fish. He can justly be regarded as the godfather of fish-farming and the progenitor of marine research and fishery protection. Forgotten now, he was one of the most original, far-sighted and influential natural scientists of his time, held as high in public esteem as his great philosophical enemy, Charles Darwin.

The Man Who Ate the Zoo is both a rollicking yarn – engaging, funny and provocative – and a celebration of the great age of natural science, one man’s genius and what, even now, can be learned from him.