Amongst the bundle was a new German edition of Gauss, but as he idly flicked through the uncut pages, the book he had been so eagerly awaiting failed to hold his attention. The library, his favourite room, was located at the back of Kilcreggan House, which itself stood on the south corner of Cavendish Square. Sash windows looked out onto the garden where Richard kept his treasured telescope, made to one of Mr Herschel’s designs. Much of the library’s wall space was taken up by glass-fronted bookcases, but a large mahogany cabinet with a rosewood veneer stood in the corner by the fireplace, its innumerable drawers containing the most prized of Richard’s specimens—butterflies and insects, semi-precious stones, fossils, and a plethora of other curios he had amassed on his extensive travels. His famed exotic botanical specimens, also collected abroad, were cultivated at his country seat in a number of expensively heated custom-built succession houses.
