The Triumphs of A Taxidermist

A taxidermist drinks whisky with Bellows and boasts. Hear Wells's The Triumphs of a Taxidermist unabridged in English: great auks faked for collectors, a stuffed moa planned from ostrich plume, a New Zealand bird that never lived until a dealer demanded one. Listen to Victorian science as a club story — fraud as craft, the specimen as a joke on ornithology. Spoken confession of a man who stuffs what the market wants. Dark humour in the voice, not a Linnean paper. The ear catches the toast and the lie. A short, nasty triumph of art over the living bird. A stuffed man used as a hat-rack, a mermaid smashed by a preacher, Javvers paying for Anomalopteryx that never flew. Hear Wells's taxidermist toast the collectors who wanted a specimen more than a truth. Club whisky as the whole method.