"A Virtuoso's Collection" is a short story by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It was first published in Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion, I (May 1842), 193-200, and later included as the final story in the compilation Mosses from an Old Manse.
The story references a number of historical and mythical figures, items, beasts, books, etc.
Some scholars regard the real-life museum of the East India Marine Society in Salem, Massachusetts, as a model for Hawthorne's fictional museum.
[1] The narrator is led through the collection by the virtuoso himself who turns out to be the Wandering Jew.