Bibliotheca Herpetologica 18(8)

Mendyk, R. W. 2024. Early Zoo Studies in Herpetology: Catherine C. Hopley and the London Zoological Gardens. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 18(8):81–87.

“You can have no idea how much there is to learn about the ways of snakes. The more knowledge one gains the more one is sensible of ignorance”— Catherine Cooper Hopley, 1893

It may come as a surprise to many that the first popular English-language book ever to be published on the lives and habits of snakes was authored by a woman in Victorian England—a period marked by sexism, misogyny, and defined societal gender roles where women were ineligible for post-secondary academic pursuits, and often excluded from participation in the natural sciences and memberships in scientific societies. Yet, despite some initial surprise over the gender of its author, Catherine Cooper Hopley’s (1882) Snakes: Curiosities & Wonders of Serpent Life was widely-acclaimed, receiving many positive and celebratory reviews. Its literary success flew in the face of numerous publishers that had declined or would not even entertain the idea of taking the project on because of its apparent “loathsome” subject matter.

Although Catherine Cooper Hopley’s (1882) Snakes: Curiosities & Wonders of Serpent Life is widely regarded as the first major tome to popularize the lives and habits of snakes, there had been previous English-language works on snakes including Edward Topsell’s (1608) The History of Four-footed Beasts, Serpents, and Insects and Charles Owen’s (1742) An Essay Towards a Natural History of Serpents. These works, however, tended to focus on cataloging species, were largely steeped in myth and folklore, and did not see the widespread distribution, audience or reach of Hopley’s book.