The Rhino Keeper

⭐️ Named a 2025 Kansas Notable Book ⭐️
Winner of the Midwest Book Award for Cover Design

Before The Porcelain Menagerie, Jillian Forsberg introduced readers to the dazzling and dangerous world of 18th-century Europe in The Rhino Keeper—a sweeping tale of wonder, obsession, and the fragile line between curiosity and control.

Based on the true story of a Dutch sea captain who toured the continent with an Indian rhinoceros named Clara, The Rhino Keeper brings to life an age when science, art, and spectacle collided in breathtaking—and sometimes perilous—ways.

2022 — College student Andrea Clarkson uncovers a centuries-old mystery in Holland: strange documents, a carved rhinoceros on an ancient grave, and a secret buried deep beneath the earth. What she finds will challenge her understanding of history—and of herself.

1740 — Ship captain Douwemout van der Meer possesses what no European has seen in generations: a living rhinoceros. Together, he and Clara travel across Europe, thrilling peasants and queens alike. But when devotion turns to obsession, and admiration to fear, Douwe must face the limits of his own wonder.

Among those enchanted by Clara is a young artist named Johann Joachim Kändler, whose porcelain creations capture the creature's grace—and whose ambition will one day take center stage in Forsberg's companion novel, The Porcelain Menagerie.

Narrated by Caroline Hewitt, The Rhino Keeper evokes the marvel of discovery and the danger of desire. Continue the journey with The Porcelain Menagerie, also from History Through Fiction—where the artist who sculpted Clara's likeness becomes the master of a court built on fragile beauty.