Explorations No 8 – Dec 1989

WALLACE KIRSOP, Foreword

WALLACE KIRSOP, Paris, City of Revolutions

This study in the special issue of Explorations commemorating the bi-centenary of the French Revolution was originally the introduction to the catalogue of an exhibition, held at Monash University, featuring pre-20th century books on Paris. The books, a little over fifty in number, all from the holdings of the Monash University Library, were written by travellers, historians, authors of fiction, social commentators and participants in the events.

Keywords: guide books, Parisian social history, revolutionary posters, antiquaries, revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1871.

WALLACE KIRSOP, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité: Pages from the Revolution

This is the catalogue of an exhibition held at the State Library of Victoria for the bi-centenary of the French Revolution, displaying the Library’s valuable collection of mainly eighteenth century holdings, including the Turgot Plan of Paris of 1739-1740, the Berry collection of items on the French Revolution and 153 volumes of the Moniteur newspaper. The author discusses the Library’s past collecting policies and the more recent decline in the purchase of European items on the revolutionary period, illustrating Australia’s “reduced cultural ambitions”.

Keywords: Bi-centenary of the French Revolution, State Library of Victoria, Richard Berry, Moniteur, newspaper

BOOK REVIEW

Jacqueline Bonnemains, Elliott Forsyth and Bernard Smith (eds), Baudin in Australian Waters: The Artwork of the French Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Lands, 1800-1804, reviewed by Edward Duyker

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