Animals have played a vital role in shaping our towns and cities from the earliest settlements. This new series offers a fascinating insight into the oft-forgotten histories of the animals that helped to drive the economy and enrich our culture.

Animals have played a vital role in shaping our towns and cities from the earliest settlements. This new series offers a fascinating insight into the oft-forgotten histories of the animals that helped to drive the economy and enrich our culture.

Local historian and broadcaster Ken Pye has collected a further fifty true tales that celebrate the weird and wonderful side of Merseyside's history. From the subterranean munitions factory at New Brighton and the bird-man of Speke, to wild tigers at Tranmere and a mysterious leprechaun, you are sure to uncover some truly amazing and extraordinary stories here. Richly illustrated, this fantastic collection will delight everyone interested in finding out more about Merseyside's strange and curious heritage.

This book asks an important question: If you were born in rural England in 1837 and died in 1901 and never travelled more than thirty miles in any direction would you have seen a hippopotamus before you died? The answer is, surprisingly, yes. In fact, the roads of England were thronged with all manner of creatures. There were even exotic butterfly farms. Kangaroos hopped around the lawns of stately homes, tigers prowled the backstreets of the East End, a tapir terrorised the people of Rochdale, an angry cassowary pursued a Lord as he was out for his daily ride, a boa constrictor got loose in Tunbridge Wells. This book is the first to explore the full and surprising extent of the exotic animal trade in nineteenth-century England and its colonies. It combines deep and original scholarly research with a lively style aimed at the non-academic reader. It looks at zoological gardens, travelling menageries, private menageries, circuses and natural history museums, to show exotic animals played a key part in the Imperial project and in the project to ensure that leisure was educational. It shows how this trade was intimately connected with the tides of Empire and how, as Germany rose, one area of competition in which Britain came off worst was the scramble for elephants.

Stanley Park Story: Life, Love and the Merseyside Derby charts the recent history of the longest continuous running derby game in English football. Liverpool and Everton have now contested the fixture every season since 1962. Using a mixture of fact, fiction and personal experience, Jeff Goulding has crafted a compelling tale spanning three generations of two families, Red and Blue. Their lives become intricately woven together through 50 years of this unique sporting rivalry. The story explores the changing fortunes of each team and the relationship between the two sets of supporters, which evolves over the years. The life and times of Jimmy, a Blue, and Tommy, a Red, form the basis of the drama which unfolds against a backdrop of thrilling sporting encounters, social and political upheaval and catastrophe. Ultimately, the story is one of a love so strong it reaches across the park to forge a timeless bond between the two families.

Animal Cities builds upon a recent surge of interest about animals in the urban context. Considering animals in urban settings is now a firmly established area of study and this book presents a number of valuable case studies that illustrate some of the perspectives that may be adopted. Having an ’urban history’ flavour, the book follows a fourfold agenda. First, the opening chapters look at working and productive animals that lived and died in nineteenth-century cities such as London, Edinburgh and Paris. The argument here is that their presence yields insights into evolving understandings of the category ’urban’ and what made a good city. Second, there is a consideration of nineteenth-century animal spectacles, which influenced contemporary interpretations of the urban experience. Third, the theme of contested animal spaces in the city is explored further with regard to backyard chickens in suburban Australia. Finally, there is discussion of the problem of the public companion animal and its role in changing attitudes to public space, illustrated with a chapter on dog-walking in Victorian and Edwardian London. Animal Cities makes a significant contribution to animal studies and is of interest to historical geographers, urban, cultural, social and economic historians and historians of policy and planning.