Little Known Museums in and Around London

Rachel Kaplan's delightful guide provides timely support for museums off the beaten track in the wake of the recent move to make many of London's larger and more famous entrance-charging museums, including the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, free of charge. The books provides a wealth of information about the content and appeal of the museums, yet also fuels the readers' desire to see for themselves. The one problem, almost inevitably with this type of volume, lies with the subjectivity of the selection. Some museums, such as the Museum of London, are arguably too well known to merit inclusion, whilst others, including the fascinating Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, are inexplicably absent. Nevertheless, an admirably wide range of museum types is presented, catering to a diverse range of readers. It is useful for numerous demographics, from those looking for a child-orientated outing that involves more than looking at dinosaurs to those who might want an unusual alternative to tours of stately homes.Despite the Horniman Museum quibble, inclusion of quirky South London venues including the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Cuming Museum, the Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum and the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum provides a laudable exception to the prevalent North and West London bias exhibited in virtually all London guides to tourist attractions and events. Whilst the three latter entries are marginal collections that deserve the praise and exposure they receive here, the Dulwich Picture Gallery is a highly significant art collection. This book forms a useful supplement to familiar general publications, such the Rough Guides, which do not have the space to enter into such textual and pictorial detail on individual collections. Kaplan's elegant and deceptively simple prose distils an extraordinary amount of scholarship into a compulsively readable form. It is an uncommon pleasure to read a guidebook marked by such a rigorous intellectual element as well as clear evidence of comprehensive first-hand knowledge and enthusiasm.

Beautifully illustrated and written, Kaplan reveals the real London -- the London most first-time visitors don't get a chance to see using traditional guide books. I highly recommend it for a more intellectual and quirky view of this eccentric culture and people. This takes you to a world way beyond the norm you never would have seen otherwise. I use her guides for all the cities she chooses to write about --

As an American who lived in London for 15 months, I thought I knew every museum in and around the city. But Ms. Kaplan's beautifully written guide introduced me to several unkown gems. What makes this guidebook so appealing, and unusual, is that in addition to decribing the museum's contents she tells you the story of how the museum came to be. Ms. Kaplan's fascinating anecdotes put the museums and their collections in the appropriate historical and political context making for a more meaningful visit. I also highly recommend her books about Paris and Berlin.