It is not known with any high degree of confidence whether the centaurs of London favoured pineapple and coconut based alcoholic beverages, frequented mock-Polynesian cocktail lounges, or sported immaculately maintained hairstyles, as did the more popularly known lycanthropes of that same city.
If you’re like me, you may very well have more than one copy of some of your favorite books. Perhaps they are different editions, perhaps one is a loaner and the other your prized copy. In the case of Charles Darwin’s On the “Origin of Species,” my own total presently stands at four – or rather, with the arrival of the new special edition published by the Natural History Museum, five.
When it comes to Twentieth Century classics of natural history, J.A. Baker’s brilliant memoir The Peregrine usually features prominently on any list. However as widely read and influential as Baker’s writings have been, the story of his own life – owing to his very reclusive nature – has been little known. Little known, that is, until the recent publication by Little Toller books of Hetty Saunder’s new biography of Baker titled My House of Sky.
For those unfamiliar with the Great Stink of 1858, it was essentially the “perfect storm” of a human (and other) waste polluted Thames River combining with a blisteringly hot July and August to produce an incapacitating stench throughout the city of London. Londoners rarely left their homes in order to avoid the wretch-inducing smell. Basic elements of civic government came to a near stand-still. And people at all levels of society called for something to be done.