The Secret Museum

by Molly Oldfield

The Secret Museum is a unique treasure trove of the most intriguing artifacts hidden away in museum archives from all over the world – curated, brought to light, and brought to life by Molly Oldfield in a beautifully illustrated collection.

Who knows what’s hidden from view? Locked away in cabinets, secure storage and aircraft hangars.

Most of a museum’s collection never gets seen. It sits in the quiet dark of an archive waiting for a treasure hunter or obsessive researcher to root out its very existence. Under the streets of Manhattan priceless books are shelved; brick outbuildings in London’s East End house drawers of Victorian embroidery remembering foundlings long ago dead; body bags in Washington clothe space suits covered in real moon dust and in an unvisited aircraft hangar sits Auguste Piccard’s extraordinary invention, the balloon gondola…

This and many other extraordinary inventions, legacies, discoveries and artefacts have been visited and curated by Molly Oldfield into a Secret Museum. Rich in atmosphere and anecdote, suffused with the surprising emotion of a personal discovery, but grounded in fascinating factual detail, this is a unique and beautifully illustrated book.

The Secret Museum reveals sixty unknown artefacts and stories from all five continents, from Rome to Rio and Boston to Berlin. And like the very best mornings spent at a museum it promises to be idiosyncratic, surprising and enormously good fun.

The Artefacts in the book include: An original Gutenberg Bible printed on vellum, Harrison Schmitt’s Space Suit, A piece of Newton’s Apple Tree, Van Gogh’s Sketchbooks, The original drawings of Wimbledon’s Centre Court, Dickens’ letter opener,Three pieces of Mars, and much more…

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Art, Museums, Travel

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have appreciated this book 20 years ago, before everything was on the internet. Reading in the present day, I found it too superficial, too lacking in pictures of the things she sees (and often the small marginal images are misleadingly not the actual item she's discussing), and too bloggy. I don't really care if she got lost trying to find a museum, or felt nervous because it was in a "bad" neighborhood, or had a too-chatty cabdriver. I was left feeling frustrated that I couldn't see the collections for myself.



Also I don't like when people think they're being creative by mixing fonts like this.

The time spent reading this would be more satisfyingly used perusing museum online collections or falling down the rabbithole of wikipedia links.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks like it’d make a great coffee table book, and in a way it is part of that genre of bite-size, digestible bits of culture. But it’s lacking in the lavish pictures I’d expect from such a thing: many of the items are represented by photographs the size of a postage stamp, or just sketches. The book itself looks nice, but it’s not the most visually orientated; I assume that’s because many of these objects are too precious to photograph. With some of them, I wasn’t sure she should even be describing their locations so clearly!

It’s an eclectic collection of objects, in no real order. I can imagine that being very frustrating to anyone a little more serious about this than I am; I did enjoy browsing through the selection, though, dipping in and out as each object interested me more or less. I liked that these precious objects aren’t all of monetary value, often being more valuable as a link to the past or a symbol of an era.

It’s interesting in its randomness, rather like watching an episode of QI, which Molly Oldfield writes for. Probably frustrating, too, if that’s not your thing.

Originally posted here.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best bit of this book is the story about Queen Elizabeth II and the Vasa. I'm not going to ruin it for you. This book is about things that aren't displayed in museums. The reasons for not being display vary, and I am sure that like me, you will quibble about which museums she visits. Still, an interesting book that introduced me to some new things, including the work of Pritchard who painted underwater.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes us behind the scenes of the world’s museums to view items that are usually only seen by curators and academics.

Some of these items are not on display simply because they are too big, others because they are too delicate. From glass models of jellyfish to spacesuits from the Apollo program, this museum collection is extremely varied. The book is also educational, at least it was for me - I didn’t know that puffins lost their colourful beaks in winter and just had a small pointed one or that Vladimir Nabakov was curator of Lepidoptera at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. One question I would have liked answered is why after it was refurbished did the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh not re-hang the skeleton of the blue whale, after all there are other animals hanging on the ceiling where it once was. Actually I would have also liked the author to have asked any of the curators from the museum in Edinburgh why they did away with the fish pond, but that is just because I would like to know.

[Saturday's Child · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I cannot visit any museums at the moment at least I can read about them. Thanks to this book I have now read about some really interesting things, like the Blaschka Collection and the Swedish warship the Vasa. Reading this has inspired me to read other works about the objects and subjects in this book.

[Dominic Tiberio · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give this zero stars, I would. I reserve this sort of review for the ultra-rare absolute worst books, and this is one of them. It is insultingly bad. Literally terrible in every way possible. It is hard to even know where to begin. I'm not sure who this book is actually written for. It is written in a childish and dumbed-down style that grates, and instead of actually *showing* any of the items or contents there are a few pages of terrible text, some bad illustrative drawings and captions, and then maybe a smaller-than-a-postage-stamp image of or from the item/collection being covered. Seriously some of these images are less then 0.5". I'd say it is for kids but it would bore any kid to death, and if it is actually meant for adults it must be meant to entertain that slim demographic of people that are barely literate but for some reason are interested in reading brief bits about items that they then can't see in any way. This is a mess of layout, design, purpose, and execution. I try to find some good in every book, this one really has little to no value and I'm not just being harsh to be harsh. The upside is that these secrets pretty much remain secret even after reading this book.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I loved the idea and the contents of this book, there are a few things that miff me about it. If you're going to go to the trouble of writing so many words about beautiful items, the least you could do is include a decent sized picture of said item when readers can actually see what you're talking about. Some items didn't even warrant a picture at all.
Secondly, the locations visited are very limited. It is clear she made one trip to New York/Boston/DC, one trip to Brazil, one trip to Amsterdam and then traversed the English country side in her spare time. a bit more variety would have been nice.

Having said that it truly is a fascinating book, once you over look the attempts at profundity and the childlike tone the reader is adressed in.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had two principal thoughts while reading this book - firstly a degree of sorrow that these wonderful things exist but nobody can get to see them; and second it sort of felt like the author was quite smug in that she did get to see them.

The essays that go along with each object are interesting enough, but, to my mind, quite forgettable. Sometimes Oldfield does focus on the object, going into details about it and how it makes her feel, but often there's a degree of padding and general fluff. And, quite often we have to rely on the author's descriptions since photographs of the object are either too small to make out much detail or, in some cases, absent entirely. The pictures are squeezed into the margins, when, to my mind, they should be given pride of place, which is a poor design choice (not necessarily the author's fault) and the book suffers for it.

The objects themselves are an eclectic bunch, ranging from a Gutenberg Bible, through the whole interior of a warship and Queen Victoria's dentist's tools to the original draft of Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne. I do somewhat envy Oldfield's access to be able to see all of these, but I do wonder how valuable this random collection of items is in the era of the Internet.

An interesting coffee-table book to browse, but by no means essential.

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some cool stuff in these pages!

[Relyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

My three-star rating seems stingy when you think of how much I enjoy the premise of this book and some of the tidbits I took from it. The truth is, I like the author's interest and research much more than I like her writing. I love all that she discovered and learned, but I could have used a good bit more story in the anecdotes. Just a personal preference.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, not only for the descriptions of hidden treasures, but also for the sheer joy Oldfield clearly takes in discovering these treasures.

It would never enter my head to ask to see the storage collection of a museum or archive, and now I want to.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly, it's interesting, so read it.

And now for my spiel. So the author visited a whole bunch of museums and their storage facilities and picked out 60 items that she thought were interesting. Based on some of what she says during the book, she is most likely a hippy. I use the word as a descriptor, not an insult. Consequently, her tastes are varied and her opinions defined. The objects she selected were fine. Some I found more interesting than others. Some seemed like she didn't have a lot to say about them, so she added other information to flesh out each segment.

The layout in terms of text was fine - each thing flowed into the next with a smoothness that was admirable. But I have some gripes.

Firstly, what is it that editors actually do these days? Because I read this book ONCE and found a whole shed load of errors and it really gets on my nerves that someone who is PAID TO FIND ERRORS AND PREVENT THEM FROM BEING PRINTED can't get it right.

Secondly, I really liked reading about the object, but found it infuriating that any images there were of said objects (if indeed there were ANY), were TINY. The pages were peppered with random colour drawings (by the author?) and the descriptors used were good, but one decent photo of each object would have been way more interesting.

Another pet peeve is picture captions that are pulled straight out of the text. I don't want to read the same thing twice unnecessarily, so please come up with something original for your captions.

My last peeve is that I started mentally writing this review about a quarter of the way through reading the book. When that happens while reading, I find it impossible to enjoy the book thereafter. I just get angry and my only consolation is that I didn't pay to buy the thing.

Overall, this felt like a "my museum trips" scrapbook thrown together in an online photo book maker, decorated with the doodles drawn while in transit and picked out with some cool header pages.

Please, please could people just take some time to produce a book that is worthy of the research that went into it?

[Catie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhhh.

This book was fairly interesting, but I didn't love Oldfield's style, and, as a lot of other reviews mention, it would have been nice to have full size pictures of more of the objects - especially as the whole point of the book is that they aren't on display!

It wasn't a chore to get through, and it might make a pleasant coffee table book, but I won't be buying my own copy any time soon.

[P.D.R. Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a book for the reference shelf and one to dip into and enjoy many times. The secret treasures museums hold around the world have been quietly explored and some of them highlighted in this book. Part of the charm is that this is not Gold treasure or jewels disclosed but little things.
Read it and find out what is hidden and where!

[RumBelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine being able to visit your favorite museums and explore their backstage collections, the collections that rarely, if ever, see the light of a display case. What fun that would be! For the majority of us, this book is the next best thing. Using 60 objects, Oldfield takes us behind the scenes to view, and learn about not only these amazingly extraordinary, items, but also the history of those people, and events connected to them. Some examples are:

*A Gutenberg Bible printed on vellum, one of the first such Bibles created. Oldfield also discussed Gutenberg himself, and his printing process.

*Harrison Schmitt Spacesuit, the suit of the only scientist to walk on the moon. Schmitt was an amazingly interesting, intelligent individual and learning about his work was eye opening.

*Three pieces of Mars that are held by the Vatican. This entry also talked about the composition of the pieces, and Mars in a larger context.

*Bejeweled cross in a museum in Brazil.

*Detailed descriptions of the interior of the Vasa warship in Sweden, with a concise history of the ship itself. As the entry said, it was "more work of art than warship."

*Haida puffin beak Shaman rattle. This was one of the more interesting entries from my point of view, due to that fact that I knew little about the Haida people.

*Jason Jr. ROV in MIT that aided Robert Ballard in finding the Titanic. I know a lot about this, however I learned, among other new things, that several versions of this ROV were created, one has been lost off the coast of South American, others are in other museums.

*Joan Miro mural in the Guggenheim in New York which, for much of the year is hidden by a false white wall. The white wall is used for exhibits, and the Miro mural is very rarely ever put on display.

*Blue whale skeleton at the National Museum of Scotland. The skeleton used to be on display all the time, until the museum opened a new building then it was locked away in storage, much to the displeasure of patrons.

**My favorite, in the catalog of the National Gallery of Berlin is a painting entitled "Tower of Blue Horses." It has a complicated history, especially with regards to the Nazis. The problem? The paining is missing. The museum has no idea where it is!

The book discussed 60 objects, and stated in it's description that it was an around the world catalog of objects, however I found this to be a little less than factual. 28 of the items, or 46% were in museums in England. 10 of the items, or 6% were in locations in the US. Of the remaining 22 items Brazil, Scotland, Canada and the Netherlands had multiple entries. Other countries with objects included Italy, France, Monaco and Norway. Notably absent were any items specifically from museums in Asia or Australia. Objects that were Asian, or from the part of the world near or around Australia were talked about, but they were housed in museums in other countries.

The writing was highly informative without being dull, or bogged down in overly technical language. It was engaging, and very interesting, Oldfield wrote in a tone that drew you in and wanted to make you keep reading.

In many cases, there were pictures of the actual objects, though in some cases, as Oldfield states, the objects were not photographable. In that case, artistic renderings were included.

A very enjoyable book!

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is based around a clever idea--discussing things that are 'too precious to display' but it completely fails in execution. In general, this book is about random objects in museums, some are not displayed, but many of them are (at least sometimes--I've even seen a few of these items) and generally speaking they are not 'too precious to display', often they are quite ordinary and not considered worthy of exhibition space. The page layout is terrible with huge blocks of text and tiny images along the edges, that often are not the objects being discussed, or are drawings that may or may not be related to anything in the text. There are numerous factually incorrect, or at the least incredibly misleading, statements in this book, and often a quick google search provided me with more information than one of the rambling chapters. The general quality of writing is somewhere between an episode of drunk history where the person quickly runs out of actual facts and a series of blog posts where the author keeps getting distracted by their own commentary on society. The main issue with this book is the author's tone, a sort of breathlessly naive and constantly distracted voice that reminded me of an adult pretending to be a child. It isn't endearing in real life and certainly isn't enjoyable over more than 300 pages. If I didn't know this was a commercially produced book, I would have expected it was some sort of vanity publication. Other than a few items which I went elsewhere to read more about on my own, this book had no redeeming qualities.

[Felicita · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the title, this book promises to hold intriguing content that not many members of the public have access to. And yet... the pictures of these treasures the writer examines are so small. They are mere thumbnails. It is such a shame. The writer had the chance to see all these things, and obviously permitted to publish photographs of them but then did so in the tiniest size possible. It's not a small book too, mind. If the whole point of this book was to share with people things that are usually kept behind the scenes at museums, why not emphasize the item? Show a large picture of it, followed by a juicy detailed description.
Speaking of the writing, it is a little too subjective. In some accounts, like when she gets to see Roald Dahl's archives, she ends the entry with some inane conversation at the newsagency she dropped by in on her way there. Many of the entries read like a personal diary detailing her own personal trip and how she touched the items or whatever -- I'm not sure these are details that are in any way beneficial to the reader.
The book did let on to some interesting stories and facts behind the items, so it kind of redeems itself, but only just.
In short -- promising subject matter, good choice of content, but poor execution.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had this book out for a long time but I kept putting it off. I wanted to read it, but not enough to actually start. Boy am I glad that I finally did! Even though many of the pieces weren't something that I would find particularly impressive if I saw them myself, the sense of wonder that was present through this book was very strong and made this book such a great read. It opened up my mind to the wide variety of museums that I have the chance to visit one day. I envy the author's experiences and the chances she had to see all these amazing hidden treasures, but I'm lucky that I got to see these on paper and learn about some of the amazing things that lurk in the archives of museums around the world.

[Stan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book! A series of 60 short - ~5 pages each - articles on interesting museum pieces that are never on display due to various issues, such as fragility, rarity or other problems. While the book is composed of things the author found interesting, it encourages you to see if you can explore yourself. She even mentions at certain museums you can see the same articles as she did - all you need do is ask. I think my favorite of these is the vellum Gutenberg Bible (fragility), although the moon dust Apollo suit is cool (loss of the moon dust if displayed). Almost all articles also wander a bit - in a good way! - making connections based on the museum piece, giving some history or other background connection. Plus, the writing is light hearted and in many places humorous.

[Colette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. It’s right down my alley. I’d love to see the back rooms and hidden collections of museums all over the world!

But just as other reviewers have said - it was far too little. The author spends more time talking about her own reactions than the objects. What pictures there are are very small and not well lit or focused.

It was really more annoying than helpful - a teaser of things you wish you could see now that you know they exist.

Before the internet, this book would have been better than nothing; you could use it to compile a list of things you wanted to learn more about or see in person.

I’m very sorry that I can’t recommend it - unless you want to use the index then go hunt down the treasures that interest you.

[Abbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give this about 3.5 stars. I really enjoyed learning about each piece that represented very different aspects of history, art, etc. I give it less stars because the images of each item were so tiny that it was difficult to actually see and sometimes she would talk about other items and it was difficult to hone in on what was the important aspect of the story.

But the cover is beautiful, and it is a fun selection of items from around the world. Plus I really enjoy knowing about secret collections.

[Lindsey Sparks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't nearly as interesting as I expected but I still enjoyed it. It was nice because I can't travel to actual museums right now, but frustrating to know I can't see these items anyway. I wish there were more photos although I guess many items are too delicate for photographing, but you would think a photo would exist that could be used. The photos that were included should have been much larger. The story about the tutus was probably my favorite. I hadn't considered how hard those are to store.

[The NYC Talon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have much preferred to see pictures, though the author clearly states that in some cases pictures are prohibited due to security concerns, I can't help but think that it cannot be the case for all of the items (hence tiny thumbnail photos in some cases).

That being said the writing was enjoyable, and background details behind the "secrets" were much welcome!

I recommend this book for any coffee table collection, "The Secret Museum" has the potential for a series - if there were pictures and/or an accessible video database.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A delightful collection of essays on items in storage at various world museums, this is a great before-bed read (short sections, one for each item). My only criticism is that the photographs of the actual objects are far too small and nearly impossible to see. I had to use the magnifier on my phone to be able to really view most of them. The book is a large hardcover, so there's no reason why this should be the case! There are pen and ink/watercolor illustrations throughout, and these are large - so why are the photos so small? It's a mystery.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about museums. It appears to be aimed at a family audience and would probably appeal to young adults. The author is a researcher for British television program 'QI' and the book reads like a research tome for that program. It is a somewhat beautiful thing with a patina of fascination about it. The content is a little patchy but more frequently absorbing than not. The emphasis tends not to be on the secrecy, as suggested by the title, but more on the museum and context of the objects mentioned. Where the work scores most highly is on originality.

[Armelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a beautifully bound book. The pages are thick and glossy. Unfortunately, it reads like a bunch of blog entries about the author’s travels. It’s not unpleasant to read, but there’s often surprisingly little about the actual artifacts themselves. And, as others have noted, the lack of useful photos is an issue. Most photos are smaller than a postage stamp.

All in all, a disappointment, and a reminder that you can’t judge a book by the cover.

[Bianca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had so much potential but the author, instead of researching and telling a story and some background on the artifact, instead told you mundane details about the curator or how SHE got access but no one else could. Obviously, that was the premise for the book. Also, horrible pictures!!!! There were tiny, and the illustrations in lieu of a picture were awful. I had to Google images of the things I found interesting

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the variety of objects she wrote about & envied her access to such amazing places but was very disappointed by the small & sometimes non-existent photos of the objects she was picking for her secret museum. If they are special enough to write about they deserved great photos so we could enjoy them too - her descriptions, while informative, were not enough. But overall, I enjoyed the book

[Hessel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mooi boek, leuk geschreven, interessant idee en veel coole dingen gevonden. Maar je kan geen boek schrijven over de mooiste dingen uit musea die het publiek niet kan/mag zien en dan alleen maar foto's op postzegelformaat in je boek doen! 👎 Ook irritant, de captions bij de illustraties zijn gewoon stukjes uit de hoofdtekst, laat ze dan gewoon weg.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite disappointing! I was excited to see and read about rare treasures kept locked away from view. Instead I was met with tiny pictures one to two inches in size so that you could hardly tell what you were looking at. Other times there would only be drawings of the item talked about. This book was a missed opportunity to showcase some fascinating pieces of history.