In the Footsteps of Zarafa, First Giraffe in France
Subtitle: A Chronicle of Giraffomania, 1826-1845
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated
Published: 2020
Language: eng
Number of pages: 200
ISBN-13: 9781538142233
Description: "This engaging account traces the remarkable history of France's first giraffe, a diplomatic gift from Egyptian Pasha Muhammed-Ali to King Charles X in 1826. "Zarafa," taken by boat from Egypt to Marseilles and walked all the way to Paris, was accompanied by her Arab handlers and a famous French naturalist. She drew vast crowds along her route, sparking a giraffomania that was widely documented in art and literature. Her initial journey and then long and celebrated residence in Paris encapsulates nineteenth-century French socio-political history and highlights the emerging evolutionary theories of the time. Over fifty illustrations from the period illuminate this rare encounter with a unique animal that is now endangered and deserving of our greater attention and understanding"--