Five Books set in museums

Submitted: 6th July 2021

Books which showcase museums with a difference

Museums have been closed or had restricted opening hours for sometime now. However, what is very interesting is the way we can look around them and even go behind the scenes if we care to…via books.

I’ve discovered some very good museums in novels and I often end up dreaming about them. Imagining if they were real, would I go to see them in real life? Would I be brave enough? Well, take a look below and decide if you would want to visit any of these in real life. In a novel YOU REALLY HAVE TO GO!

So, take a torch and come along as some of these are creepy…..

The Animals of Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

You might want to go a Natural History Museum after reading this one. The one in London sends its collection of stuffed animals out to a gothic mansion for safekeeping during the war. Hetty is the female museum director who goes with the animals to Lockwood Manor in the English countryside. Here, the animals seem more ghostly, more eerie and one of them has moved, hasn’t it?

The Museum of Broken Promises by Elizabeth Buchan

Every object in the Museum of Broken Promises represents a moment of grief or terrible betrayal. A fictional place but one inspired by the Museum of Communism in Prague which showcases random objects and memories from Soviet times.

The Doll Factory by Elisabeth Macneal

Creepy dolls and doll heads alert! Very atmospheric and chilling. There’s Mrs Salter’s Doll Emporium to visit and Silas Reed’s Shop of Curiosities. Antique and New as well….

Creepier still…a museum of Taxidermy!

The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Kate Mosse

You have Kate Mosse to thank for this one. And you should really thank her. Connie Gifford lives with her father in a decaying house: it contains all that is left of Gifford’s once world-famous museum of taxidermy. Now a decaying reminder of death.

Now for perhaps the most famous museum in the world! And it’s real so you can visit….

Madame Tussauds

Little by Edward Carey

The story of how Madame Tussauds came to be. Such a fascinating story of the woman behind it all, and the way she discovered how to create realistic wax models. The sketches in the novel really add to the appeal and fascination of it all.