This book for macabre-lovin’ 8-12-year–olds begins with a cute construct: a typed letter from one Dr Leila McCreebor, who has come across notebooks and manuscripts written by her great grandfather Dr McCreebor - an eminent explorer and philosopher from the Victorian era.
Back then, the wealthy and well-educated would travel the world and once home, display their curios in a cabinet; this book is the print equivalent of such a cabinet. The curios here are classified by the Latin names of their day: artificialia (art), naturalia (natural objects, animals and people), scientifica, scelus et supplicium (crime and punishment), spiritualis (the spirit world), magicae, and morteum (death).
The delectably deviant contents include the fancifully designed and delightfully named “tempest prognosticator” (AKA storm predictor), invented around 1850 by George Merriweather, and featuring 12 leeches, each contained in a glass jar, which would unwittingly flick a lever that would cause a bell to ring if they became agitated by the onset of a storm.
There’s the alleged sea devil, or Jenny Haniver, a fantastical creature that is half fish, half human that sailors claimed to have brought back from distant lands - but was likely carved and fashioned from skate.
Want some Waterloo teeth? The Battle of Waterloo killed a whopping 60,000 soldiers - and their teeth were stripped by entrepreneurial scavengers, and made their way to the dentists of Europe, who fashioned them into cheap and much-coveted dentures.
Another tidbit to raise your eyebrows: Every three years in an isolated mountain region of Indonesia, the Torajan people bring out the dead: they dig up their dead relatives, clean them and then dress them in new outfits before burying them again.
The creepy Victorian theme is vividly captured in the book’s illustrations and design: the glass cloche on the cover, intricate page borders, kaleidoscopic art on the chapter title pages and the muted colour palette throughout. Eerily entertaining.
Reviewer: Stacey Anyan
Allen & Unwin