The Secret Museum is a unique treasure trove of the most intriguing artifacts hidden away in museum archives from all over the world - curated, brought to light, and brought to life by Molly Oldfield in a beautifully illustrated collection. Who knows what's hidden from view? Locked away in cabinets, secure storage and aircraft hangars. Most of a museum's collection never gets seen. It sits in the quiet dark of an archive waiting for a treasure hunter or obsessive researcher to root out its very existence. Under the streets of Manhattan priceless books are shelved; brick outbuildings in London's East End house drawers of Victorian embroidery remembering foundlings long ago dead; body bags in Washington clothe space suits covered in real moon dust and in an unvisited aircraft hangar sits Auguste Piccard's extraordinary invention, the balloon gondola. This and many other extraordinary inventions, legacies, discoveries and artefacts have been visited and curated by Molly Oldfield into a Secret Museum. Rich in atmosphere and anecdote, suffused with the surprising emotion of a personal discovery, but grounded in fascinating factual detail, this is a unique and beautifully illustrated book. The Secret Museum reveals sixty unknown artefacts and stories from all five continents, from Rome to Rio and Boston to Berlin.

And like the very best mornings spent at a museum it promises to be idiosyncratic, surprising and enormously good fun. The Artefacts in the book include: An original Gutenberg Bible printed on vellum, Harrison Schmitt's Space Suit, A piece of Newton's Apple Tree, Van Gogh's Sketchbooks, The original drawings of Wimbledon's Centre Court, Dickens' letter opener, Three pieces of Mars, and much more. * Will appeal to fans of The History of the World in 100 Objects (TCM 175k) and fans of QI, which continues to achieve the highest viewing figures on BBC4 and Dave. * Molly Oldfield is the 'QI Elf' - the researcher for the hit panel show, and writes the weekly QI Telegraph column. * The British are passionate about museums! Eight of the top ten visitor attractions in the UK are museums and the UK has five of the top 20 most visited art museums in the world (more than any other nation). * A huge nationwide campaign is due to launch with a major national newspaper partner to encourage the British public to vote for their favourite artefact, which will then be retrieved from the depths of the storeroom. Competition: The Library;The Birth of the Museum;The First Ghosts;A History of the World in 100 Objects;Notes from Deep Time;The Story of Art. by;Andrew Pettegree;Tony Bennett;Irving Finkel;Neil Macgregor;Mary Beard;Helen Gourdon;Bill O'Neill.