This week, we’re giving away three copies of The Butterfly Thief by Walter Marsh. The Butterfly Thief recounts the daring 1947 theft of over 3,000 rare butterflies from Australia’s top museums by British adventurer Colin Wyatt, whose exploits spanned continents and disciplines. Using newly uncovered archives, Walter Marsh explores Wyatt’s enigmatic life while probing the murky legacy of Western museums built on stolen treasures. Here’s the blurb:
The story of the most audacious serial heist in the history of Australia’s museums – and the British gentleman adventurer who pulled it off and got away with it – in a scientific true crime caper stretching around the globe.
In January 1947, a chance discovery rocked the world of natural science: over 3,000 rare and precious specimens of butterflies had vanished from Australia’s most prestigious museums in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Alarmingly, the missing insects included many priceless ‘holotypes’ – the first specimen of a given species to be identified, against which all others are compared.
On the other side of the world, New Scotland Yard descended on a country house in Surrey, where they found a trove of over 40,000 butterfly specimens. The culprit was Colin Wyatt, a Cambridge-educated ski champion, mountaineer, wartime camouflager, artist, and amateur naturalist whose high-flying exploits cut a path from the Alps of Europe to a London court room to a final expedition to the jungles of Guatemala.
Drawing on unpublished case files, dossiers, and private archives, The Butterfly Thief pieces together Wyatt’s enigmatic life story and his decades-long impact on the world of natural history. Along the way, award-winning journalist Walter Marsh reveals a deeper history of gentleman explorers, scoundrels, and grave-robbers that begs an uncomfortable but vital question: What if Western museums were crime scenes all along?
If you’d like to win a copy, simply enter your details in the form below. Three lucky people will win a copy!
Entries close midday (Syd/Melb time) Monday 6 October 2025. Winners will be notified within a week of the competition closing.
GOOD LUCK!
THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR YOUR ENTRIES! WINNERS WILL BE CONTACTED BY EMAIL AND ANNOUNCED IN OUR NEWSLETTER.
