Museum
Museum
£71.00
GBPWhen the first British visitors arrived on Australia's shores at the end of the eighteenth century, it was not only the potential of its space that tantalised them, but the extraordinary living things that they found there. Every European collector worth his salt desired a kangaroo, a parakeet, a waratah, and ship after ship sailed north loaded with Australia's remarkable natural history specimens. In 1826, the most serious collector to make his own trip to the antipodes arrived – his name was Alexander Macleay, and over 70 years he and his family accumulated an unbelievably rich and diverse collection of specimens from Australia itself and beyond. Museum throws open the doors of a historically rich and rare collection, stunningly captured in the images of Robyn Stacey. It reclaims the stories of those specimens, and those obsessions, revealing another chapter of Australia's own very particular, passionate and unique history.
- Extraordinary images by photographer Robyn Stacey
- Unique combination of these images with stories and scientific notes
- A chance to see collections as you've never seen them before - this book gives you behind-the-scenes access to the millions of objects held by the Macleay. This stunning interpretation opens the world of early scientific investigation in colonial Australia through the most human and accessible of its many possible stories
Reviews & endorsements
'The photographs in Robyn Stacey and Ashley Hay's Museum vividly illustrate the stunning beauty of Macleay's insect collections… Robyn Stacey and Ashley Hay provide a detailed and readable account of the Macleay family, their passions and their collections. The text has been kept comparatively brief to allow generous space for the extraordinary images that follow it. It will whet its readers' appetites, leaving them eager to know more about the culture of natural history that shaped the Macleays and their collections.' The Times Literary Supplement
Product details
January 2008Hardback
9780521874533
196 pages
345 × 259 × 19 mm
1.7kg
100 colour illus.
Out of stock in print form with no current plan to reprint
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Invertebrates
- 2. Acknowledgements, 1. Essays Ashley Hay (In the Beginning, In the Old World, In the New World, William John Macleay, In the Museum)
- 2. Plates Robyn Stacey (Entomology, Expedition, Exotics, Education)
- 3. Collection Notes Macleay Museum
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index.
