author
Charles Mayer
1862–1927
Drawn from a life in circuses, zoos, and jungle expeditions, these books offer a vivid look at the dangerous trade in capturing wild animals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The stories are adventurous and often startling, shaped by firsthand experience in the Malay Archipelago and beyond.
1 Audiobook
Trapping wild animals in Malay jungles
by Charles Mayer
About the author
Born in 1862, Charles Mayer was an American animal collector, tamer, and circus supplier who became known for capturing and trading exotic animals for zoos and traveling shows. He spent years working in the Malay Archipelago and wrote about the methods, risks, and daily realities of that work.
His best-known book, Trapping Wild Animals in Malay Jungles (1921), presents those experiences in memoir-like form, combining travel writing with accounts of animal capture. Today, his work is often read as a historical record of a very different era in entertainment and wildlife collecting.
Mayer died on May 14, 1927. Some later sources note that parts of one of his books were found to closely repeat material from another writer's work, a detail that has become part of how his career is remembered.