Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo‘s Keeper, Also Jumbo’s Biography

Scott, Matthew, 1834-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4

Word count: 69K words
Chapters: 7

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo's Keeper; Also Jumbo's Biography, by theAuthor: Scott, Matthew, 1834-,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Apr 14, 2015

Editor's review

This autobiography left by Matthew Scott himself is a primary source for understanding the famous nineteenth-century elephant Jumbo and his relationship with his keeper. From the keeper's intimate perspective, the author records daily life with Jumbo, details of his care, and how the animal became a public focus; the book also includes a biography of Jumbo, forming a dual narrative of man and animal. As a public-domain ebook from Project Gutenberg, it preserves the original text, and its language and narrative style bear clear marks of the era. For readers studying early zoo culture, the history of circus exhibition, and the history of human-animal relations, it has irreplaceable value as historical material. Read it as a historical document rather than a fluent modern biography, and pay attention to the specific descriptions of animal transport, display, and daily management. It suits readers interested in animal history and Victorian popular culture for slow, careful reading, and can also serve as material for writing or coursework on related topics.

Who it's for

A good fit for

History readers interested in nineteenth-century animal display and circus culture
Scholars or students studying the history of human-animal relations and zoo history
Readers who enjoy firsthand memoirs and original documents
Those who need public-domain English historical material for writing or coursework

Not a good fit for

General readers expecting fluent modern narrative or literary biography
Readers seeking professional animal science knowledge rather than historical records
Readers who have major difficulty reading the English original and lack辅助 tools

Reading tips

Read the Jumbo biography first, then return to the keeper's autobiography, clarifying how the two strands of man and animal correspond.
While reading, mark details concerning transport, feeding, and exhibition management for later historical sorting.
Read alongside background material on nineteenth-century animal exhibition history to fill in context the original lacks.
The English original is long; schedule progress by chapter and take brief notes after each chapter before continuing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book mainly about the elephant Jumbo or the keeper himself?

Both. The title indicates that it includes two parts: Matthew Scott's autobiography and Jumbo's biography. The keeper recounts his own experiences as a firsthand witness while also recording Jumbo's life and public image, so readers can see two interwoven narrative strands of man and animal.

Is this a modern biography, and will it be difficult to read?

It is not modern writing. It is an original text from the nineteenth century, organized by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook; its language and narrative style bear the marks of the era, and its sentence structures and word choices differ from contemporary English. Read it as a historical document and use dictionaries and background material as needed.

Is this book suitable for academic citation?

It can be used as a primary historical source, especially for topics such as early animal display, zoos, and circus culture. But it is a public-domain electronic text; when citing it, note the version information and cross-check with other historical sources, avoiding conclusions based on a single memoir alone.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Scott, Matthew, 1834- Author · 1834

Public information about Matthew Scott (born 1834) is very limited, and details of his life are known mainly through his own written account. He is remembered for having long cared for an elephant named Jumbo, and on that basis wrote Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo's Keeper Also Jumbo's Biography, the only work by him held in this collection. The book combines autobiography with animal biography: the earlier part recounts his own experiences and daily work as a keeper, while the later part narrates Jumbo's life. Written in plain, firsthand prose, it preserves observations of the keeping and touring of a large exhibition animal in the nineteenth century and offers some reference value for understanding human-animal relations of the period.