The Rarest of the Rare: Stories Behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
Text by Nancy Pick, Photographs by Mark Sloan

Reviewed by Mary Case and Anita Durel

Every museum has this book in it: stories of objects, their idiosyncratic collectors, and most importantly, their meaning. Here, answered for the first time in my experience, is the why of a specimen, why it was collected, why it was retained sometimes over two centuries and what it has come to mean over that time. As Pick’s poetic prose states: Behind every specimen in this book is a good story. And spin the yarns she does! Her storied specimens include George Washington’s pheasants, a turtle collected by Henry David Thoreau from Walden Pond, the only remaining specimen – a woodpecker – from Meriweather Lewis’ 1803 expedition, and Charles Darwin’s sand dollar collected in 1834. Mark Sloan’s photographs show these specimens to glorious advantage.

Every museum I’ve been in has these stories: People who braved hazards of every sort to collect: the man who hiked 2700 miles to collect the most obscure type of ginseng in the world. Someone who lovingly restored a 1927 John Deere one-stroke tractor to pristine condition, while letting his crops rot in the field. A woman, who collected every variety of light bulbs known to mankind, including the packaging, but lived in a house without electricity. Why do people collect and what becomes of their collections? How does the museum actually treat the object once it comes into its care? What does the conservator think about it? How do the curators react to it as it is passed from one generation to another?

This book is the inside skinny, the secrets, the stuff people really want to know, beautifully written, stunning photographs.