The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century

by Kirk Wallace Johnson

Despite multiple studies demonstrating that experts couldn’t hear any difference – and that he’d be auditioning behind a screen – Edwin had his eyes on a $20,000 golden flute,

He didn’t feel particularly bad naming names – it was their mistake to have trusted him.

‘People don’t actually fish with this shit, right?!’ Prum said. ‘So what is it about? It’s about this fixation, this obsession with originality. Well, there’s no fuckin’ originality in the world! Who are these guys? They’re dentists from Ohio! What claim do they have to originality in anything?!’

By contrast, Edwin and the feather underground were a bunch of historical fetishists, practising a ‘candy-ass, ridiculous, parasitic activity’ that Prum would be glad to see go extinct.