Product Description

For two and a half thousand years, unicorns have inspired, enchanted and eluded humanity. The beast appears in Old Testament texts and Greek and Roman natural histories; Christians adopted it as a symbol of Christ, the middle-ages as a symbol of courtly love. A brisk trade was had in unicorn parts in Medieval and Renaissance times and travellers reported sightings into the modern era. Where did the unicorn come from, and how was it accepted as part of the animal kingdom for so long?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151423 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 280 pages

Review
'Beguiling ... wise and entertaining' - Sunday Times --Review

Review
`Entertaining and diverting ... Laver's lively account is full of marvels' - Sunday Telegraph

Review
`The origin of the species and its later fame in lore and legend is cleverly told' - The Times

Customer Reviews

A fascinating, original read.
I had to read this book after reading a review in `The Independent' describing the book as a "scholarly shaggy-dog story". I found Chapter 5 a little involved (on Khutu), but overall this book is a fascinating, original read. Who would guess that the story of the unicorn (actually many different unicorns) would branch into so many areas of history and culture. Very well-written.

From the author
Dear readers. Here are some press cuttings. If you buy the book I hope you enjoy it.

Spectator
'Scholarly and continually absorbing ... highly original and stylish ... Everything you need to know about unicorns is here. Lovely.'

The Guardian
'Lively, compelling, full of anecdote, wry scepticism and an honest humility about the things it is simply impossible for us to know for certain ... The book, like its subject, is not quite one thing nor another, but a fascinating hybrid'

Sunday Telegraph
'Entertaining and diverting ... The unicorn remains a symbol of power and mystery, and Lavers's lively account is as full of marvels'

The Independent
'In the wrong hands this could easily become flat and rather tedious. But Lavers has the gift of literary touch. He treats his sources with sympathy respect and good humour, but never topples into over-seriousness. He is a good bubble-burster, leading the reader along into a kind of scholarly shaggy-dog story and then popping it with a prick of nicely phrased common sense.'

Sunday Times
'In this beguiling book, Chris Lavers pursues the unicorn across two and a half millenniums ... By the end of this wise and entertaining book, his unicorn has ceased to be the quaint motif of nursery rhyme and heraldry, and has instead become a symbol of vulnerability and co-dependence of species, including our own'

The Times
'The origin of the species and its later fame told in lore and legend is cleverly told'

Financial Times
'[An] intriguing book ... The history of a non-existent animal is, by definition, a series of diversions from actuality, and, by reversing that trajectory, Lavers' book takes us to some fascinating places'

Daily Telegraph
'Chris Lavers traces our fascination with the idea of a one-horned horse back 2,000 years in this scholarly history of unicorns ... The history of the unicorn shows human beings at our imaginative best and our manipulative worst'

Esquire
'Some writers might shy away from conducting an anthropological study of a creature that, for most of us, resides only in spiritual bookshops and She-Ra cartoons. Not Lavers, who goes to painstaking lengths to analyse and deconstruct reports of the animals through the ages, to find out how - and even if - they were first imagined'

Authoritative book of unicorns
This is an excellent book about unicorns that seeks to answer the following questions:
- What animals are unicorns?
- Where do the myths of unicorns come from?
- What is the unicorn's symbolism?
- How are unicorns depicted in art?
- What medicinal properties do unicorn horn have?
- Where do unicorn horns on the market come from?
- Can unicorns exist scientifically speaking?

These short and flat questions do not encompass the books contents. The book is approachable, intelligently written, humourous, and a scholarly achievement.

Oh yes, and luckily there are no new age-y, pastel coloured horses with a single horn here. (Thank you for that.)

Louise.