A Very Secret Trade – The Dark Story of Gentlemen Anthropological Collectors in Tasmania | Cassandra Pybus | 2024 [NEW – SC]

In the 19th century, European collectors and museum curators cultivated contacts in Van Diemen's Land who could supply them with specimens — not just thylacines and platypuses, but human remains. The belief that Tasmania's original Aboriginal people were a unique race facing extinction drove the European scientific community to scramble for human exhibits, creating a clandestine trade in human bones that reached to the highest levels of colonial society.

Among those involved were four colonial governors, key politicians, and Lady Jane Franklin. In Britain, Sir Joseph Banks, the Duke of Newcastle and Professor Thomas Huxley were among the eminent figures soliciting human specimens from the colony. Most disturbingly, the men responsible for the care and protection of the surviving Aboriginal people were themselves prominent in this trade.

Cassandra Pybus uncovers one of the most carefully hidden chapters of Australia's colonial history — documented with rigour and told without softening.

BOOK DETAILS

• Softcover.
• 318 pages.
• Published 2024 by Allen & Unwin.

CONDITION

New.

DELIVERY & IN-STORE PICKUP

• Combined Shipping: Sourcing multiple titles for your Tasmanian history library? The Book Cellar offers combined flat-rate parcel delivery across Australia. Secure your books using our online checkout, or phone the bookshop directly on 03 6381 1545 to coordinate multi-volume shipping.
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