Jumbo
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A magical blend of true story and popular science, Jumbo is the wonderful, colourful biography of the greatest elephant ever known. Born in Africa in 1863, Jumbo was orphaned by ivory-hunters, “rescued” and taken to France. Mistaken for a runt, he was sold to London Zoo, where he became the favourite of the British populace, from Queen Victoria to the young Winston Churchill – until, talent-spotted by the American circus-owner P.T. Barnum, and despite public outcry and Royal protestations, he was taken across the Atlantic to New York. There, having once more conquered public hearts and now a beast of giant proportions, he “befriended” a smaller elephant, Tom Thumb – but in saving whose life he was to meet a tragic end. This book not only unravels the story, but also looks at Jumbo from a zoologist’s point of view. Why was he thought to be a runt? What helped or hindered him in adapting to unfamiliar surroundings from one hemisphere to the other? How was he likely to have reacted to the overwhelming public attention – and to isolation from his natural habitat? The author draws illuminatingly on modern knowledge of elephant behaviour and biology to shed light on the mysteries surrounding Jumbo’s life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Chambers (A Sheltered Life: The Unexpected History of the Tortoise) tells the colorful story of a magnificent animal. Captured in Africa in 1862, the young elephant, later called Jumbo, languished in Paris's Jardin des Plantes until 1865, when he was bought by the London Zoo. Under the care of a devoted keeper, Matthew Scott, the ailing elephant became the world's largest and the zoo's greatest attraction. In 1882, American circus magnate Phineas T. Barnum bought Jumbo, who became the star of the "Greatest Show on Earth" but died tragically in 1885, when he was hit by a freight train while on tour with the circus in Canada. Chambers highlights the personalities of the major players in the tale: Scott, a reclusive, irascible man at ease with animals but not with people; Abraham Bartlett, the superintendent of the London Zoo, who longed to be rid of the irksome keeper and his often troublesome elephant; Barnum, the flamboyant showman; and Jumbo himself, moody and subject to displays of temper, but gentle with thousands of children who rode on his back. Chambers's account of the legendary elephant whose name has become synonymous with large objects is touching and entertaining. Illus.
