Life through a lens - Susan Snell

Visit the Natural History Museum - 100 years ago. Featuring a wealth of stunning black-and-white photographs from the Museum's vast collection, this book offers a real flavour of life at one of London's oldest and most famous visitor attractions, from Victorian times until just after the Second World War.



The photographs go back as far as the 1880s, the earliest years of the Museum, when only a few horse-drawn carriages roamed the streets of South Kensington and elephants and gorillas from distant parts of the British Empire were exhibited for the first time. In later years the Museum gardens were to be dug over for vegetable production during the war and whale carcasses were buried in the grounds. An immediate success in 1881 - its first year of opening - 231,284 people visited the Museum free of charge. Today almost 3 million visitors come through the doors each year.



The book focuses on the unusual events that have taken place at the Museum over the years, the characters working at and visiting the Museum, and of course the awe-inspiring specimens. Ranging from the amazing to the amusing, the images are evocative and brimming with period detail.