The Book of Curiosities

For readers who miss the age when the world still teemed with inexplicable things, John Platts assembled this cabinet of wonders in the mid-1800s. Long before the disciplines of science neatly sorted knowledge into categories, Platts gathered remarkable accounts from every corner of the globe: natural phenomena that baffled observers, customs that seemed miraculous or monstrous, human achievements that defied explanation. The volume opens with the human body itself, its circulation and respiration and delicate senses rendered as the first of nature's marvels. From this intimate foundation, Platts unfolds his parade of curiosities, from strange beasts to celestial phenomena, from exotic rituals to mechanical marvels. The book captures a precious moment in intellectual history, when the line between natural and supernatural had not yet been drawn, when to observe the world with wonder was still a way of understanding it.