SAMUEL JOHNSON’S MENAGERIE - The Beastly Lives of Exotic Quadrupeds - In the Eighteenth Century- Julia Allen

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For many people Samuel Johnson personifies the eighteenth century. From humble beginnings he talked and wrote his way to eminence, gathering about him friends and acquaintances, a list of whom reads like a contemporary
Who’s Who. 
Samuel Johnson’s Menagerie grew out of the entries on exotic quadrupeds in Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language. It is much more than an account of some of the famous wild beasts that provided a spectacle for gaping Londoners. It also looks at what was known or believed about them; at their medicinal and culinary uses; at their place in Creation; at their relationship to man, and much more besides.
Johnson’s entries on the exotic quadrupeds are printed in their entirety in the first section. Parts II and III look behind the definitions and Part IV includes eye-witness accounts of some of the famous wild creatures that provided such a spectacle for gaping Londoners.

192pp, four colour laminate cover with flaps, 8pp full colour illustrations and approximately 85 b&w drawings and illustrations
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