![[Review] John Simons. Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London. Animal Publics Series, edited by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey and Melissa Boyde, Sydney University Press, 2019. 226 pp](/media/cover_images/c3db5236-cb52-4d16-ace4-aa44332418eb.jpg)
Abstract
[Review] John Simons. Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London. Animal Publics Series, edited by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey and Melissa Boyde, Sydney University Press, 2019. 226 pp. John Simons’ riveting biography of a hippo invites the reader into the experience of Obaysch who was captured on the Nile in 1849 then became a ‘star’ animal in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens in London. Obaysch is not just figured symbolically, politically and culturally, as so many historical animals are; Simons entices him from the archives to inhabit his own embodied narrative – a process which springs him from entrapment as a spectacle behind bars at a very particular time for British imperialism.
How to Cite:
Woodward, W., (2020) “[Review] John Simons. Obaysch: A Hippopotamus in Victorian London. Animal Publics Series, edited by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey and Melissa Boyde, Sydney University Press, 2019. 226 pp”, Animal Studies Journal 9(1), 221-223. doi: https://doi.org/10.14453/asj.v9i1.10
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