My dear Spencer : the letters of F.J. Gillen to Baldwin Spencer, (1997)

Component identifier:

Series 24

Content Summary:

Correspondence, grant applications, notes, research material, annotated typescript drafts, printed material and other papers relating to the book, which was published in South Melbourne by Hyland House in 1997. My dear Spencer is an annotated edition of 185 letters written by F.J. Gillen to Baldwin Spencer, 1894-1903, together with one reply from Spencer written in 1904. Gillen and Spencer first met when Spencer took part in the Horn Scientific Expedition, which travelled through Alice Springs in July 1894, where Gillen was post and telegraph station master. The letters, which are held in the archives of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, are a testimony to the close collaboration and friendship between Gillen and Spencer. They carried out several anthropological excursions together, resulting in The Native Tribes of Central Australia (1899), The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904) and The Arunta (1927). Mulvaney researched and edited the letters together with Howard Morphy of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National University and Alison Petch of the Pitt Rivers Museum.

Among the correspondents are Jill Braithwaite, Diane Bell, Max Charlesworth, Elizabeth Durack, Bud Ford, H.W. Fraser, Ken Inglis, John Iremonger, Dick Kimber, Fred McKay, Howard Morphy, Patrick O'Farrell, Alison Petch, Janet Putnam, R.W. Bruce Reid, Deborah Bird Rose, Deryck Schreuder, Fred Silcock, Hazel Sinclair, Billy Soo-Lee, Neil Spark, James G. Stewart, Hilary Thompson, John Thompson and Brian Wilder.

This series also includes correspondence concerning From the frontier : outback letters to Baldwin Spencer (2000). Further papers relating to this volume are found in Series 25.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The original instalment of this collection (MS 9615) was donated by Professor Mulvaney under the Cultural Gifts Program in September 1999. Further instalments were received in 2013 and 2017.

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