'Forgotten hero of natural history' to Chatto & Windus

Chatto & Windus is publishing an account of the life of Frank Buckland, a "forgotten yet extraordinary" surgeon, pioneer conservationist and natural historian of the nineteenth century held in as high esteem as Charles Darwin in his own time.

The Man Who Ate The Zoo: Frank Buckland, Forgotten Hero of Natural History is "part biography, part narrative history, part rollicking good yarn", authored by award-winning environmental journalist and author Richard Girling, who published The Hunt for the Golden Mole with Vintage last year.

Buckland, the book's subject, is credited with, among other things, finding revolutionary ways to feed the hungry - and the book recounts his many "unusual" experiments - and saving British fish from commercial extinction.

The Man Who Ate The Zoo will publish 3rd November, priced £16, in hardback and e-book.