Bøker av John Simons

Aristotle wakes with no memory after being left for dead in a place that carries the seeds of a distant and dying Earth, but he is not alone. The survival of the human species rests on his shoulders and a small group of discarded humans. Meanwhile, Iseulte and her friends flee the spark of civil war that engulfs their home. They escape into long-forgotten tunnels where they find that things Humanity dabbled in and abandoned have taken on their own lives and destinies. Although separated by unimaginable distance, the future of these two groups was bound together in the distant past by the strangest secret of all.

"For the first time, fish became our companions and a corner of many a Victorian parlour was given over to housing tiny fragments of their world enclosed in glass."The experience of seeing a fish swimming in a glass tank is one we take for granted now but in Victorian England this was a remarkable sight. People had simply not been able to see fish as they now could with the invention of the aquarium and everything that went with it.Goldfish in the Parlour looks at the boom in the building of public aquariums, as well as the craze for home aquariums and visiting the seaside, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Furthermore, this book considers how people see and meet animals and, importantly, in what institutions and in what contexts these encounters happen.John Simons uncovers the sweeping consequences of the Victorian obsession with marine animals by looking at naturalist Frank Buckland's Museum of Economic Fish Culture and the role of fish in the Victorian economy, the development of angling as a sport divided along class lines, the seeding of Empire with British fish and comparisons with aquarium building in Europe, USA and Australia.Goldfish in the Parlour interrogates the craze that took over Victorian England when aquariums "introduced" fish to parks, zoos and parlours.

"For the first time, fish became our companions and a corner of many a Victorian parlour was given over to housing tiny fragments of their world enclosed in glass."The experience of seeing a fish swimming in a glass tank is one we take for granted now but in Victorian England this was a remarkable sight. People had simply not been able to see fish as they now could with the invention of the aquarium and everything that went with it.Goldfish in the Parlour looks at the boom in the building of public aquariums, as well as the craze for home aquariums and visiting the seaside, during the reign of Queen Victoria. Furthermore, this book considers how people see and meet animals and, importantly, in what institutions and in what contexts these encounters happen.John Simons uncovers the sweeping consequences of the Victorian obsession with marine animals by looking at naturalist Frank Buckland's Museum of Economic Fish Culture and the role of fish in the Victorian economy, the development of angling as a sport divided along class lines, the seeding of Empire with British fish and comparisons with aquarium building in Europe, USA and Australia.Goldfish in the Parlour interrogates the craze that took over Victorian England when aquariums "introduced" fish to parks, zoos and parlours.

Looking at zoological gardens, private menageries, circuses, and natural history museums, this fascinating account explores the surprising extent of the exotic-animal trade in 19th-century England and its colonies. Filled with entertaining anecdotes-from the tiger that prowled down St. George's Street in London with a boy in its mouth and the polar bear that killed a dog in Liverpool to the kangaroos hopping around the lawns of stately homes and the boa constrictor who got loose in Tunbridge Wells-this book also shares how the animals played a key role in the project to ensure that leisure was educational. As it demonstrates how the trade was intimately connected with the tides of Empire, it will be of interest to academics and general readers alike.

Rossetti's Wombat tells the story of Top, a wombat who belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti for a few months in 1869. The book also describes the strange history of the European fascination with the wildlife of Australia, from the late 18th century onwards. By 1860, most well-to-do people could buy a pet kangaroo from a London pet shop - and many of them did. Wombats were rarer and more expensive but the tradition of wombat owning was well established by the turn of the 19th century. Napoleon had a pet wombat, as did the Duke of Edinburgh. Rossetti's Wombat is a light-hearted account of an improbable side of Victorian England. It examines the way a wombat participated in the delicate relationships between the men and women in the Pre-Raphaelite circle - particularly Rossetti's emotional affair with Jane Morris, wife of his friend and colleague William Morris. Fully illustrated with drawings and etchings of the period, Rossetti's Wombat will appeal to those with an interest in Victorian England and the Pre-Raphaelites - and to wombat lovers everywhere. John Simons is Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Media, Humanities and Technology at the University of Lincoln. He has published widely on subjects ranging from medieval chivalric romance to Andy Warhol, and from editions of medieval and early modern texts to a history of Hampshire cricket.