The Butterfly Thief Book Launch (Adelaide)

Join me at the State Library of South Australia for the hometown launch of my new book, The Butterfly Thief: adventure, empire, and Australia’s greatest museum heist, out 30 September via Scribe Publications 🦋

I’ll be joined by friend and journalist Tory Shepherd for a short Q&A about the book, with wine courtesy of Coriole Vineyards and books for sale from my pals at Dymocks Adelaide.

Doors open 5.30pm for a 6pm start.

It’s a FREE event but don’t forget to RSVP, space is limited.

About The Butterfly Thief:

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Drawing on unpublished case files, dossiers, and private archives, The Butterfly Thief pieces together Wyatt’s enigmatic life story and his decades-long impact on the world of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?

Speakers:

Walter Marsh is a journalist and editor based in Tarntanya/Adelaide, and the author of Young Rupert: the making of the Murdoch empire (Scribe 2023). A former staff writer and editor at The Adelaide Review and Rip It Up, his writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Crikey, The Age, and InDaily.

Tory Shepherd is a senior journalist at Guardian Australia and the author of On Freedom. She has also written for Crikey, Cosmos, and Gourmet Traveller and has appeared on a range of ABC radio and television shows. Previously Tory was the political editor at The Advertiser and a News Corp columnist. 

This event takes place on Kaurna Yarta -- it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

The Butterfly Thief was written with the support of a South Australian Literary Fellowship from the State Library of South Australia and Writers SA, and a project grant from Arts South Australia.