Museum: The Macleays, Their Collections and the Search for Order.

Abstract

STACEY and Hay have previously collaborated on the volume Herbarium (Stacey and Hay 2004) regarding collections held in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Ashley Hay has published two books of narrative non-fiction. Her essays, short stories and journalism have appeared in various periodicals including The Bulletin where she was a literary editor. Robyn Stacey is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Western Sydney. She is an acclaimed photographer, in Australia, with her photography shown in Australia and internationally. This book is about the history, collectors and collections of The Macleay Museum at The University of Sydney. Its aim is to bring the reader closer to the collectors and collections by breathing life into the characters and selected specimens in the collection; according to the dust-jacket’s hyperbole, to throw open the doors of the museum and its rich collections. The authors develop the book with their individual skills, one of writing and one of photography. The second is facilitated through its aesthetic appeal, its folio size and large photographic reproductions of strikingly coloured specimens. The whole is a coffee-table-style-book with a text that digs deeper developing the background to the personalities and collections, intertwining them with the history of early systematists/collectors, which provides the backbone of the text.