Document information

Physical location:

Box 241/3 Shillinglaw papers, La Trobe Australian manuscripts collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. 76.06.04

Preferred Citation:

Ferdinand von Mueller to John Shillinglaw, 1876-06-04. R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora, J.H. Voigt and Monika Wells (eds), Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, <https://vmcp.rbg.vic.gov.au/id//letters/1870-9/1876/76-06-04-final.odt>, accessed June 13, 2026

Sunday
1
The first Sunday after M to J. Shillinglaw, 29 May 1876 was written was 4 June, the earliest date on which this letter could have been written.
I have found the larger portrait, dear Mr Shillinglaw, & send it you on loan, so that you can have your choice between that and the woodcut of R Brown . Anticipating that you will not need the woodcut, I have not sent the "prodromus", as I cannot spare the latter for an indefinite number of days.
2
R. Brown (1810). A copy at the RBG, Melbourne, has a wood-cut of Brown glued to the fly leaf. The cutting is from the obituary of him in lllustrated London news, 10 July 1858, p. 29. The copy in the national Library of Australia is online at http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136047831 . The image is 'from a photograph by Maull and Polyblank', probably from the image identified by Mabberly (1985), fig. 61, p. 379, as taken in 1857, a copy of which is in the Wellcome collection at https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ufh4dhqc , where it is dated to 1855.
The larger image to which M refers has not been identified.
Give me at least the chance to see your biography of R Brown, before you forward it to the press.
3
Shillinglaw received papers from Flinders's family for a biography but it was never published. M's reference to a biography of Robert Brown is evidently a slip, although he may have been expecting a biographical note on Brown to be included in that of Flinders, on whose circumnavigation of Australia Brown was the botanist.
Kindly do not forget the one letter of Flinders, — ever so small — you promised me.
With best regards
Ferd. von Mueller.