SPENCER, Baldwin & GILLEN, F.J. - Lot 150

SPENCER, Baldwin & GILLEN, F.J. Across Australia. London, Macmillan and Co, 1912. 2 volumes in-8 (214 x 136 mm) of XIV, 254 pp. 5 colored plates for volume I; XVII, pp. [255]-515, 2 colored plates, 2 folding maps at the end for volume II. Red percale, cover and spine decorated with a special iron showing aborigines, gilt head (publisher's binding). First edition. Francis James Gillen (1855-1912) and Walter Baldwin Spencer (1860-1929) assembled what is perhaps the most influential collection of Australian ethnographic material ever assembled. Their work had a decisive influence on the early development of anthropology, particularly in Europe. Gillen and Spencer developed their collection at a time when the Aborigines of Central Australia were relatively untouched by European contact (between 1875 and 1912) and, as such, it constitutes one of the most comprehensive inventories of a regional Aboriginal group in existence. Their extensive collection and published works continue to shape the production of knowledge about Aboriginal life past and present, both in anthropology and in popular imagination. Equally important, it is also an invaluable cultural archive for the descendants of the Aborigines with whom Spencer and Gillen worked in Central Australia, the Arrernte, Anmatyerr, Kaytetye, Warumungu, Luritja, and Arabana peoples, who are still very much present in the region (see spencerandgillen.net). Very richly illustrated with more than 365 illustrations out of text the book gives details on geology, flora, fauna, inhabitants and their customs. A very good copy. Provenance: B. Bradford Skirlaugh (name on the flyleaf, accompanied by a photograph of the 'Baroni' property).