Autumn book reviews
Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London
by John Simons
Published by Sydney University Press
ISBN 9781743325865
$35.00
Obaysch, a hippopotamus captured from the Egyptian Nile and transported to live out his life in a Victorian English zoo, has been much studied and admired. His popularity at the time demonstrated the lingering, drawing, power of charismatic megafauna and he has continued to inspire portraits, studies and academic analysis long after his death. John Simons, recently retired from forty years of university life in England, America and Australia, has written a book dedicated to drawing Obaysch out from cultural signification and anthropomorphism,
