by Monte Reel
9 Murray’s kids would beg the “Monkey Man”: Paston, At John Murray’s.
10 “My children will never forget”: Clodd, Memories.
11 “almost the last man whom one at first sight”: Alfred H. Guernsey, “Du Chaillu, Gorillas, and Cannibals,” Harper’s Monthly, April 1868.
12 The audience was hooked: The short article in the Times on Feb. 27 about the RGS meeting commented that “M. Du Chaillu’s wanderings were told in a humorous style, and provoked a great deal of laughter.” Other reports underscored the audience’s unusual fascination with the lecture, including “The Gorilla Region of Africa,” Times (London), March 5, 1861; “Royal Geographical Society,” Weekly Chronicle, March 2, 1861.
13 “the most strange and extraordinary animal”: Galton, Proceedings.
14 “In natural history, as we go on comparing”: Ibid.
15 There were dozens of ladies: Dallas, Series of Letters from London; and Dallas, diaries.
16 He had castrated them: References to the castration can be found in Dawson, Darwin, Literature, and Victorian Respectability; Morris and Morris, Men and Apes; and Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land. In his scandalous sixteen-volume translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (Benares, India: Kamashastra Society, 1885–1888), Burton includes the following footnote, which vividly illustrates his reliable disregard of politesse: “[The] private parts of the monkey … are not of the girth sufficient to produce that friction which is essential to a woman’s pleasure. I may here allude to the general disappointment in England and America caused by the exhibition of my friend Paul du Chaillu’s Gorillas: he had modestly removed penis and testicles … and his squeamishness caused not a little grumbling and sense of grievance—especially amongst the curious sex” (“Supplemental Nights,” 4:333n).
17 “one of the oldest Fellows”: Times (London), March 5, 1861.
18 John Thadeus Delane, received a dinner invitation: Dasent, John Thadeus Delane, Editor of “The Times,” vol. 2.
19 “where, with amazing chemistry, Tom Towers”: Trollope, Warden.
CHAPTER 22. THE GREAT WHITE HUNTER
1 On a spring morning in Bloomsbury: Interior descriptions of the Mudie library as it appeared in 1861 come from Once a Week, Dec. 21, 1861. More information about the business’s background and operating methods is from Guinevere Griest, “Mudie’s Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel,” Modern Philology 69 (1972). 122 Mudie, who’d had good luck with travel narratives: Du Chaillu’s popularity in Mudie’s library comes from “Metropolitan Notes,” Journal of Education for Upper Canada 12–14 (1861).
2 It shot to the very top of Mudie’s: From advertisements in the Athenaeum.
3 “We must go back to the voyages of Le Perouse”: “The Discoveries of M. Du Chaillu,” Times (London), May 20, 1861.
4 “M. du Chaillu’s narrative will not disappoint”: The reviews originally appearing in the Saturday Review, the Spectator, and the Critic were reprinted in the Spectator 34 (1861).
5 “I travelled—always on foot, and unaccompanied”: Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures, viii.
6 The book dripped with sensational descriptions: For an analysis of the psychological interpretation of the book as a symbol of Europe’s conception of Africa, see Ben Grant, “ ‘Interior Explorations’: Paul Belloni du Chaillu’s Dream Book,” Journal of European Studies 38, no. 4 (2008).
7 “I am sorry to be the dispeller”: Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures, 347.
8 “incontestable proof of the great ascendancy”: Ibid.
9 “I protest I felt almost like a murderer”: Ibid., 60.
10 “to find the very home of the beast”: Ibid., 69.
11 lecture hall that was “crowded to excess”: Owen, Life, vol. 2.
12 “M. Du Chaillu gave a very quaint”: Ibid.
13 “Shooting a lion”: Quotation comes from an overview of the Royal Society lecture in the Church of England Magazine, May 11, 1861.
CHAPTER 23. INTO THE WHIRLWIND
1 “from their size might fairly be denominated tusks”: From a report in the Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Scotland), July 9, 1861.
2 But in 1843, London’s Punch magazine: “Cartoon No. 1,” Punch, July 1843.
3 “Am I a Man and a Brother?”: “Monkeyana,” Punch, May 18, 1861, 206. For more about the relationship between the evolution debate and cartoons, see Constance Areson Clark, “ ‘You Are Here’: Missing Links, Chains of Being, and the Language of Cartoons,” Isis, Sept. 2009.
4 “Monkeyana” was penned by Sir Philip Egerton: Rupke, Richard Owen.
5 “man of insignificant personal strength”: “Discoveries of M. Du Chaillu.”
6 “But I left the note myself at your door”: The Wilberforce story was repeated in several publications. The quotations are taken from “Our Foreign Bureau,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 23 (1861).
7 “My name it is gorilla”: Charles Handel Rand Marriott, “The Gorilla Quadrille,” sheet music and lyrics obtained from the National Library of Australia.
8 “The Lion of the Season”: “The Lion of the Season,” Punch, May 25, 1861, 213.
9 Lent’s wife, Julia Pastrana: Several accounts of Pastrana’s life were written shortly after her death. A modern perspective can be found in Janet Browne and Sharon Messenger, “Victorian Spectacle: Julia Pastrana, the Bearded and Hairy Female,” Endeavor 27, no. 4 (Dec. 2003).
10 “The figure,” wrote the Lancet: “A New Process of Embalming and Preserving the Human Body,” Lancet, March 15, 1862.
11 Dickens believed every word printed: In All the Year Round, Dickens advised readers that every word of the magazine was “to be received as the statements and opinions of its Conductor.” He called himself the “Conductor” of the magazine because he believed “editor” didn’t convey the hands-on nature of his role. For more on Dickens’s editing role, see Victor Sage, “Dickens and Professor Owen: Portrait of a Friendship,” in Le Portrait (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1999).
12 “If you knew how much interest it has awakened”: Dickens to Owen, July 12, 1865.
13 For Dickens, the difference seemed: For more on the impact of the evolution debate on Dickens’s writing, see Goldie Morgentaler, “Meditating on the Low: A Darwinian Reading of Great Expectations,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 38, no. 4 (1998). In reference to Great Expectations, Morgentaler cites the publication of Du Chaillu’s book as one of several pieces of evidence that “traces of Darwinism should lie beneath the surface of Dickens’s text.”
14 “The stupid weak savage”: “An Ugly Likeness,” All the Year Round, June 1, 1861, 237–40.
15 “put a bad construction”: “Next Door Neighbours to the Gorilla,” All the Year Round, July 27, 1861, 423–27.
16 “A gentleman of this disposition”: Ibid.
17 The Coral Island—an adventure about three English youths: The enormously popular novel was, a century later, the inspiration for William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which subverts Ballantyne’s romantic optimism.
18 “hideous creatures one beholds”: Ballantyne, Gorilla Hunters.
19 he interpreted it as a veiled attack: For more on Thackeray’s response, see Cantor, Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical.
20 “What do you think?”: Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, vol. 2.
21 a satirical response printed in the Cornhill Magazine: “Roundabout Papers,” Cornhill, July 1861.
22 London’s police courts were clogged: Hollingshead, Ragged London in 1861.
23 She justified the beating: Reade, Savage Africa.
24 “Behold me here!” Byron announced: “Savage Club,” Baily’s Magazine of Sports and Pastimes, vol. 3 (London: Baily Brothers, 1861).
25 “Say, ‘Am not I a savage and a brother?’ ”: “The Savage Club,” Crosthwaite’s Register of Facts and Occurrences Relating to Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, July 1861.
26 Every
day of June on Regent Street: Based on classified advertisements in the Times (London).
27 The playbill advertised Paul J. Bedford: The Adelphi Theatre Project, Calendar for 1860–1861.
28 According to some calculations: In David M. Wrobel, “Exceptionalism and Globalism: Travel Writers and the Nineteenth-Century American West,” Historian 68, no. 3 (2006), sales for Du Chaillu’s book were estimated at 300,000 copies.
29 “excellent opportunity wasted by them”: “Explorations and Travels,” National Quarterly Review 3 (Sept. 1861): 393–97.
CHAPTER 24. THREE MOTIVES
1 defining landmark had always been the pub: Some of the atmosphere around the Elephant & Castle comes from “Some Things in London and Paris, 1836–1869,” Putnam’s Magazine, Jan.–June 1869; Dyos and Wolff, Victorian City; and Bacon, Spurgeon.
2 “A monster place of worship”: Cater, Punch in the Pulpit.
3 “Some persons, you know, will not go”: Mathews, Hours with Men and Books.
4 “the social zone between the mechanic”: Dowling, London Town, vol. 2.
5 Spurgeon roamed the tabernacle’s stage: Bacon, Spurgeon.
6 “I was told, and I believe, that in Agricultural Hall”: William Cleaver Wilkinson, introduction to Charles Haddon Spurgeon, by Pike and Fernald.
7 “as strong with pepper as can be borne”: Ibid.
8 “Let us commence the present service”: Ibid.
9 He devoured it, reading night and day: C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography.
10 “December 19th was Sunday by my account”: Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures.
11 “Let me paint a set of slides on the gorilla”: C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography.
12 To reach Walton Hall’s front entrance: The building, and the knockers, still exist today; the site is now part of the Waterton Park Hotel.
13 Past the entrance to the dining room: Some of the period details of Walton Hall come from Hobson, Charles Waterton, His Home, Habits, and Handiwork; Blackburn, Charles Waterton; and Edginton, Charles Waterton.
14 “a person recently discharged from prison”: Blackburn, Charles Waterton.
15 “a spider after a long winter”: Ibid.
16 “tapping the claret”: Hobson, Charles Waterton, His Home, Habits, and Handiwork.
17 John Edward Gray hadn’t attended Paul’s lectures: J. E. Gray, “Zoological Notes on Perusing M. du Chaillu’s Adventures in Equatorial Africa,” Annals of Natural History 7 (1861).
CHAPTER 25. THE GORILLA WAR
1 “Some time ago the arrival of a new African traveller”: “The New Traveller’s Tales,” Athenaeum, May 18, 1861.
2 “they have been preserved in or near the habitation”: Ibid.
3 The illustrations included in his book: Vaucaire, Gorilla Hunter.
4 “I hope that neither in my book”: P. B. Du Chaillu, letter to the editor, Times (London), May 22, 1861.
5 “This at least is certain”: Paul Du Chaillu, “The New Traveller’s Tales,” Athenaeum, May 25, 1861.
6 “If Mr. Du Chaillu had published his work”: J. E. Gray, letter to the editor, Times (London), May 24, 1861.
7 Gray’s allies in the press proposed: Despite Du Chaillu’s later claims, Gray himself didn’t propose the name change.
8 “deliberately falsified material”: Barth’s article appeared in Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde 10 (1861): 430–67.
9 When a new map of equatorial Africa: The map was prepared by Dr. August Petermann and appeared in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1862).
10 “As we were lazily sailing along”: Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures.
11 According to the story, someone asked him: “M. Du Chaillu’s Eagles,” letters to the editor, Times (London), June 6, 1861.
12 To celebrate the organization’s anniversary: “Royal Geographical Society,” Times (London), May 28, 1861.
13 “one of the boldest ventures which man”: “Sir Roderick I. Murchison’s Address,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 5 (1861).
14 “Strikingly attractive and wonderful”: Ibid.
15 “Whether one judges Monsieur Du Chaillu”: Times (London), May 28, 1861.
16 “I feel almost overwhelmed by the compliment”: The Times (May 28, 1861) transcribed Du Chaillu’s speech, complete with the audience’s reaction, but rendered it in the past tense and the third person. I’ve altered the tenses and the pronouns to more naturally reflect Du Chaillu’s words.
17 “an uneducated collector of animal skins”: Gray, “Zoological Notes.”
18 “He says they seem to have been wounded”: J. E. Gray, “On the Habits of the Gorilla and Other Tailless Long-Armed Apes,” Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, May 28, 1861.
19 “I then inquired of {the taxidermist}”: “On the Death-Wound of the ‘King of the Gorillas,’ ” letter read by Gray at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sept. 1861.
20 Egerton insisted the evidence was entirely consistent: “The Gorilla,” Athenaeum, Sept. 21, 1861.
CHAPTER 26. THE SQUIRE’S GAMBIT
1 “I immediately seized his forelegs”: Waterton, Wanderings in South America.
2 Those who knew him best: See Hobson, Charles Waterton.
3 “self-constituted censorious scoundrels”: Gosse, Squire of Walton Hall.
4 Waterton hadn’t seen Paul’s specimens: Letters of Charles Waterton of Walton Hall.
5 “It must have been on its hind legs”: Ibid.
6 “Our closet naturalists may gulp”: Ibid.
7 Mrs. Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie: This traveling show was well known among nineteenth-century naturalists; Richard Owen, for one, occasionally received exotic specimens from it.
8 “Having mounted the steps”: “Watertonia,” Living Age 56 (Jan.–March 1858).
9 “She journeyed on”: Ibid.
10 Gorillas, he concluded, were made to swing: Letters of Charles Waterton of Walton Hall.
11 “scandalized beyond measure”: Waterton, Essays on Natural History.
12 “I allude to an occurrence”: Hobson, Charles Waterton.
13 “What a clever fellow Du Chaillu has been”: Waterton to Mrs. W. Pitt Byrne, July 14, 1861.
CHAPTER 27. THE GORILLA IN THE PULPIT
1 “It’s nothing but the pictures”: C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography.
2 “The Gorilla and the Land He Inhabits”: In addition to the text of Spurgeon’s lecture, several articles about the lecture were used to collect the descriptions and quotations in this chapter, including “Mr. Spurgeon on the Gorilla,” Liverpool Mercury, Oct. 3, 1861; “Mr. Spurgeon on the Gorilla,” Times (London), Oct. 3, 1861; “Mr. Spurgeon on the Gorilla,” Morning Post, Oct. 4, 1861; “Annals of the Band of Hope Union,” in The Band of Hope Record, April 1861 to December 1862 (London: W. Tweedie, 1862); “Mr. Spurgeon on the Gorillas,” Literary Budget, Nov. 1, 1861.
3 “I can only say that if I travel again”: Du Chaillu’s comments were transcribed in the third person in the Liverpool Mercury, and I’ve changed them to the first person for clarity.
4 wine, brandy, or ale was “absolutely necessary”: Du Chaillu, Explorations and Adventures, 322.
5 “to eat dirt and lick the shoes”: “Mr. Spurgeon on the Gorillas,” Literary Budget.
6 “That the members of this church”: C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography.
7 “This work of my Institution is of God”: Ibid.
8 For decades after this lecture: For an analysis of Spurgeon’s views on evolution, see Nigel Scotland, “Darwin and Doubt and the Response of the Victorian Churches,” Churchman 100, no. 4 (1986).
9 “Compromise there can be none”: Drummond, Spurgeon.
CHAPTER 28. MRS. GRUNDY AND THE CANNIBAL CLUB
1 Leicester Square was not a place: In addition to period guidebooks of London, some details about Leicester Square were found in Lutz, Pleasure Bound.
2 A small cadre of cultu
re warriors: For information on the Cannibal Club, I relied on letters and a disparate collection of books, including Brodie, Devil Drives; Sigel, Governing Pleasures; Henderson, Swinburne; Swinburne, Swinburne Letters; Bercovici, That Blackguard Burton!; Farwell, Burton; and Kennedy, Highly Civilized Man.
3 “Preserve us from our enemies”: Only twenty copies of “The Cannibal Catechism” were printed in 1913 from a manuscript from Edward Gosse, a friend and biographer of Swinburne’s.
4 The name came from a play: Morton’s play was Speed the Plough (1798).
5 “absolutely unfit for the Christian population”: Brodie, Devil Drives.
6 “Mrs. Grundy is already beginning to roar”: Wright, Life of Sir Richard Burton.
7 The forty-year-old Burton was at a crossroads: I relied on numerous biographies, listed above, for the biographical sketch of Richard Burton; among the most helpful were those by Lovell, Rice, Brodie, and Farwell.
8 who’d already mingled socially with Milnes: The two men crossed paths at meetings of the Royal Society in early 1861, according to the organization’s proceedings.
9 “the governmental crumb”: Farwell, Burton.
10 “a most able paper which wanted nothing”: Accounts of the feud are in Kennedy, Highly Civilized Man; and Baker, History of Geography.
11 “gentlemen and players”: Kennedy, Highly Civilized Man.
12 “a sin of omission”: Richard Burton, “Ethnological Notes on M. du Chaillu’s Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa,” read before the Ethnological Society of London, 1861.
13 The voice belonged to Thomas Malone: Some information on Malone’s history comes from “On Engraving by Light and Electricity,” Journal of the Franklin Institute 64 (1857); “Lectures on Photography,” Photographic Journal 3 (1857). The Database of 19th Century Photographers and Allied Trades in London, 1841 to 1901, accessed at www.photolondon.org.uk, also provided some biographical details.