The businessman and philanthropist Sir Henry Wellcome was fascinatedby anthropology and the history of medicine. By the time he died in 1936, he had built up one of the world's largest and most extraordinarymuseum collections. Estimated to be five times the size of the Louvre, his collection is now scattered among more than a hundred institutions including the Wellcome Trust, the British Museum and the Science Museum. The objects Wellcome brought together range from the ancient tothe magical, from the religious to the scientific. Beautiful, mysterious or bizarre, they all illuminate the history of human beings and their bodies.
The Phantom Museum offers some personal responses to this vast but little-known collection. Playful and thought-provoking contributions from A. S. Byatt, Tobias Hill, Peter Blegvad, the Brothers Quay and Hari Kunzru combine text and images, fact and fiction, comment and imagination to consider how objects can be read depending on who views them and when. Published to coincide with a major new exhibition of Wellcome's collection, this is an enjoyable and lasting introduction to its wonders.
