ASBS Newsletter – Book Review

Brilliant Careers
Women collectors and illustrators in Queensland

Compiled by Judith McKay.

(From ASBS Newsletter Number 99, June 1999)

Queensland Museum,
PO Box 3300, South Brisbane, Qld 4101 (1997). vii + 80 pp.
ISBN 0 7242 7693 9 Price $24.95

This book will be familiar to Queensland members (especially those who contributed chapters) but is probably little known elsewhere. It contains short biographies of 34 women who collected and/or illustrated natural history specimens in Queensland. The botanical ones are Harriette Biddulph, Mary Strong Clemens, Joan Cribb, Amalie Dietrich, Hilda Geismann, Doris Goy, Selina Lovell, Kathleen McArthur, Ada McLaughlin, Ellis Rowan, Vera Scarth-Johnson and Estelle Thomson. Most include a portrait and there are reproductions of illustrations as well as photographs of herbarium specimens. An entertaining book, and very useful for those interested in the history of natural history.

Reviewer: Alex George