2010 1st edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Boston & New York. Ppxii,285. B/w frontispiece photograph. Two-tone brown boards. Mint in dust-wrapper.
Notes: Taxidermy "is a thriving world full of intrepid hunter-explorers, eccentric naturalists and gifted museum artisans, all devoted to the paradoxical pursuit of creating the illusion of life. Into this subculture ventures journalist Melissa Milgrom, whose quest to understand its fascination takes her from the family workshop of the last chief taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History to the studio where an English sculptor preserves animals for Damien Hirst's most disturbing works". And much else besides.
