Finders Keepers: Treasures and Oddities of Natural History

About this book

Most of us collect things but seldom have entire collections been preserved. A few that did survive have fallen figuratively into the clutches of two of Americas most innovative minds: photographer Rosamond Wolff Purcell and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. What these collections say about the collectors and about human beings in general is the subject of this strangely beautiful and rich compendium. Here are Purcells wonderfully exotic photographs of teeth and other human artifacts from the collection of Peter the Great; moles pigs and dogs from van Heurns many boxes of perfectly preserved skins; and all manner of preserved life from Rothschilds Birds of Paradise to the fish of Agassiz. Here also is Gould at his best delighting in the unusual and making connections to our own history and evolution that only the most fertile and whimsical mind could imagine - and that few will be able to resist. This is a book for those with a craving for beauty knowledge and a fascination with the unusual.