Curiosity House: The Shrunken Head (Book One)

Lauren Oliver has recently partnered with a most interesting man, H.G. Chester of Miskatonic University, RI. An eminent scholar of American history and avid collector of unusual relics (specializing in the most macabre objects obtainable from the first half of the twentieth century), Mr. Chester had the good fortune - or ill luck, perhaps one should say - to come into possession of the estate of Dumphrey's Dime Museum of Freaks, Oddities, and Wonders, an operation of its kind established in lower Manhattan in1929 and closed only twenty-seven months later in mysterious circumstances.

Among the archives and artifacts of the Dumphrey estate, Mr. Chester discovered a tale waiting to be told - one rife with the sort of thrills and horrors which would in an earlier era have been deemed very likely too scarifying for the public, but which may well be of interest to the young reader of today. Mr. Chester immediately sought out Lauren Oliver to be his co-writer, and she has woven Mr. Chester's interesting inheritance into a magical tale well suited to young readers.

The Curiosity House will be a narrative history of the Dumphrey Museum saga, relating the story of four children of extraordinary abilities - there is Sam, the world's strongest boy; Filippa, the mentalist; Max, the world's greatest female knife-thrower (she's better than all the boys, too); and Thomas, the magician's assistant - who must solve a string of murders taking place in or around the Museum at which they are employed as human marvels, while at the same time coming to grips with their experimental origins and astonishing talents. (Hint: they are no actors, but are the genuine articles!)