-Alfred Newton, Cambridge professor, to former student, Walter Rothschild
I am not sure if I ever would have read this book, much less chosen it for our book club, except it was highly recommended by a member. First, I don't often select non-fiction; second, I didn't know the author; and finally, who ever heard of stealing feathers? But the book was described as "true crime," which I do enjoy sometimes. Even after reading the prologue I wasn't totally sure the book was to my taste but it didn't take long to be drawn into this unique story. And did I ever learn a lot about the feather trade! Really more than I wanted to know since I am an animal-lover and the author told of countless birds losing their lives in pursuit of their beautiful feathers. I will rate the book a 4; I liked it in spite of myself!
The author first hears of Edwin Rist from a fly-fishing guide and the more he learns, the more obsessed he becomes. Rist, a young and talented flautist, had robbed the British National History Museum of over 299 rare and valuable dead birds. WHY? you may ask. Answer: to make loads of money catering to the cult of men seemingly addicted to the hobby of Victorian salmon fly-tying. So, you've never heard of that? Neither had I.
Aside from learning of Rist's heist of birds, the reader learns about Alfred Russell Wallace, " a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858." (from Wikipedia) I had the feeling Mr. Johnson came to have great respect for Wallace who had become known as the father of biogeography. Many of his specimens were among the ones stolen by Rist at a great loss to ornithologists.
I also learned about Walter Rothschild who had a bird obsession of his own and acquired the largest zoological collection ever amassed by a private individual, so large it required its own museum. [See the quote] Rothchild died in 1937 and his collection is now housed at the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum at Tring, a division of the British Natural History Museum and the site of the bird heist.
Much of the book is about Mr. Johnson's efforts to find the bird specimens that were not recovered by the authorities after the arrest and prosecution of Edwin Rist. The author is a self-described "refugee advocate moonlighting as an amateur bird heist investigator."
I was quite familiar with the "feather fever" of the late 1800's in which the snowy egret of Florida almost became extinct due to the demand for feathers to adorn ladies' hats. The founding of the Audubon Society in 1905 came about partly as a protest to this fad. The book touches on feathers for fashion before going into, at greater length, the equally horrible mania of Victorian salmon fly-tying, which requires feathers of exotic, rare and even endangered species of birds.
I can't help but wonder how much of this insanity...and illegality... is still going on today!
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More after our meeting...
Several of the Page Turners met via Zoom to discuss The Feather Thief. One of my first questions was to find out how many had ever heard of Victorian salmon fly-tying. I was surprised several folks were familiar with it. Not everyone liked the book as much as I did. The average rating was 3.2 with no 5's and a single rating of 1, which is very rare. I think we agreed that the book is important if it has brought more attention to this underground feather trade. Most of us were put off by reading about the killing of so many birds but then everyone should be! Many of our group were glad we read the book as it taught us so much.
I shared some photos I found and collected since some of us read the book in electronic form and did not have the beautiful colored pictures displayed in the hardcopy. There are a couple of interviews with the author to be found on YouTube; it was interesting to hear how he became motivated to
pursue this story.
Examples of Victorian salmon flies
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