Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on exotic skins as well as on Britain's preoccupation with displays of these skins and mounted trophies, Wild Animal Skins fittingly ends by how these fixations influenced the ways in which Victorians mapped the world about them. It examines the colonial adventurers' maps that take their cue from hunters' encounters with animals and the collecting of their skins. The book also discusses the period's fascination with zoogeography, a cartographic genre popular in mid-century among scientists desiring to chart the distribution of animals throughout the globe. It explores the muddles, disappointments, and disasters inherent in Victorian natural history collecting. The book corrects the received belief that when amassing and arranging these spoils, the British exercised control over foreign territories. It offers an occasion to think about the skin in taxidermy and to focus on the depiction of skin in natural history portraits.