Books

Wellcome Collection publishes books that relate to our exhibitions, collections and areas of interest.

Shapeshifters

To be alive is to be in perpetual change. Shapeshifters considers the transformations in mind and body that span the arc of human life.

Medieval Bodies

This striking and unusual history brings together medicine, art and social history to reveal what life was really like in the Middle Ages.

Graphic Warnings

25 vintage postcards showcasing the style and wit of 20th-century public health campaigns and their iconic graphic design.

The Book of Human Emotions

A gleeful, thoughtful collection of 156 feelings, both rare and familiar, by Tiffany Watt Smith.

Animal Vegetable Mineral

Animal Vegetable Mineral celebrates the beauty and strangeness of ordering systems used to classify nature in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Forensics

The book examines techniques - from DNA analysis to entomology to digital evidence - that experts use to solve crimes.

The Institute of Sexology

A lavishly illustrated hardback book accompanying ‘The Institute of Sexology’ exhibition.

Sound

Sound draws on the extraordinary experience of losing your hearing and - as Bella Bathurst eventually did - getting it back.

Being Mortal

A profoundly important and moving new book from Atul Gawande.

The Voices Within

A wide-ranging look at the voices in all our heads, examining how we think and what it means for our lives and sense of self.

A Heavy Reckoning

A Heavy Reckoning explores the modern reality of medicine and injury in wartime, giving insights into the limits of human life.

Death

Disturbing, macabre and moving, this beautifully clothbound book examines our enduring desire to make peace with death.

Medical London

'Medical London' charts the many roles that diseases, treatments and cures have played in the city's sprawling story.

The Sick Rose

The Sick Rose is a beautifully gruesome and strangely fascinating visual tour through disease in an age before colour photography.

Sex by Numbers

Sex by Numbers is an informed, entertaining and eye-opening look at the most enduring of human obsessions.

Skeletons

A 64-page book including all of the burial site photographs commissioned for the exhibition.

The Smile Stealers

A gruesome yet captivating look at the evolution of dentistry, from the extraction of rotting teeth to the pursuit of the perfect smile.

Dirt

Dirt is waste, excrement, rubbish - but what then is soil? Is cleanliness next to godliness - or sterility?

Diary Drawings

Winner of the MIND Book of the Year 2011.

In Therapy

An insightful, honest account of the process of therapy from bestselling author and psychotherapist Susie Orbach.

This is a Voice

Your voice is a powerful instrument. You use it every single day, but do you know how to look after it? Or to get the best out of it?

The Phantom Museum

An anthology of stories, true and imagined, inspired by objects from Henry Wellcome's collection.

The Art of Medicine

For thousands of years artists have played a special role in the human quest to understand anatomy, health and disease.

A Guide for the Incurably Curious

This beautifully illustrated souvenir guide traces the history of Henry Wellcome’s collections.

Identity and Identification

This book explores the philosophical, biological, historical and sociopolitical issues underlying our conception of self.

Tibet's Secret Temple Postcard Book

A book of 25 large format cards, showcasing exquisite details from the temple murals and key artefacts from 'Tibet's Secret Temple'.

Madness and Modernity

'Madness and Modernity' sets out to chart the theme of madness across a variety of territories in Vienna in 1900.

Eat Me

A dark, fascinating and endlessly curious exploration of human and animal cannibalism.

Adventures in Human Being

Both a user's guide to the body and a celebration of its elegance, this book will transform the way you think about being alive.

States of Mind

A collection of literature, science and art delving into the mysteries of human consciousness, with an introduction by Mark Haddon.

Cures and Curiosities

The Wellcome Library is one of the most extraordinary libraries in the world.

Sleeping and Dreaming

'Sleeping and Dreaming' takes a fresh look at the apparently simple questions of why humans need to sleep and dream.

Brains

This fully illustrated and fascinating exploration of the brain has been published to tie in with the ‘Brains’ exhibition.

This Way Madness Lies

An evocatively illustrated exploration of the evolution of the asylum and attitudes towards people with lived experience of mental distress.

High Society

'High Society' explores the spectrum of mind-altering substances across the globe and throughout history.

Future Face

This book examines what faces really tell us, what makes them unique, and how art and science transform them.

A Practical Course in Personal Magnetism

Unleash your charisma the Victorian way through the power of electric currents, with this forgotten precursor to today’s self-help classics.

Pearls of the Orient

This lavishly illustrated book celebrates the variety and beauty of the Asian collections preserved in the Wellcome Library.

The Heart

Received First Prize in the popular medicine category for the 2008 Medical Book Awards sponsored by the British Medical Association.