Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius

The desire to possess the skulls of the brilliant and famous-for study, for sale, for public (and private) display-has in some people been irresistible. And the lengths they have gone to achieve their acquisitions have at times become a comedy of the grotesque.

The after-death stories of Haydn, Beethoven, Emanuel Swedenborg, Sir Thomas Browne and others have never before been told in such wretched detail and lightning vividness.