Arachnophilia or Arachnophobia? Australian spiders at the National Library
Cover: Die Arachniden Australiens nach der Natur
Photo: Loui Seselja, National Library
Original drawings of a Sydney specimen, showing spider and parts
Photo: Loui Seselja, National Library
Final proof of original drawings of a Sydney specimen, showing spider and parts, Tafel XXIII (Plate 23)
Photo: Loui Seselja, National Library
Love them or loathe them Australia has some 2000 spider species which are the environment’s natural controllers of insects. Thankfully there are arachnologists who are fascinated by them and have documented them for future posterity.
The National Library recently acquired a rare work by a leading 19th century German arachnologist which describes, for the first time, 474 Australian spiders, amongst others.
Entitled Die Arachniden Australiens nach der Natur (Nürnberg), this monumental work was written and illustrated by Ludwig Koch and completed by Graf E. Kayserling. Published in two volumes, between 1871 and 1890, it contains 37 parts and 147 plates.
The species, which include some from the South Pacific, were provided by Museum Godeffroy of Hamburg. The Godeffroys owned and operated one of Hamburg’s most successful shipping companies through trade in the South Pacific and Australia between 1850 and 1880. Copper was imported from South Australia and copra from Samoa. From 1848 Godeffroy ships brought immigrants from Europe to Australia. The Museum had flora, fauna and ethnographical specimens collected by many scientific collectors including Amalie Dietrich and Eduard Damel who collected hundreds of spiders from New South Wales and Queensland between 1863 and 1875.
The title is identified in Ferguson’s Bibliography of Australia as F11242a. The Library’s acquisition is rather unusual as it is not the published edition but a composite in various states. It is the author’s own copy with Koch family provenance.
The text and plates are both in manuscript, proof and published states with some reproductions to complete the text. Much of the collection is unique with manuscript fragments of text, an unpublished proof plate, various plates in either two or three states and many corrected proof sheets and gatherings containing manuscript changes and/or annotations by the author.
The black and white plates were produced using either an engraved or mezzotint process to bring out the fine detail of the spider’s anatomy, despite lithography being the preferred practice for scientific works at that time.
The National Library’s acquisition of Die Arachniden Australiens nach der Natur complements the complete published set held in the Mitchell Library and will enable a range of research including further scholarly research into Australian spiders, scientific writing and publishing in 19th-century Europe, and the bibliographical study of German scientific imprints in series.
Wanda Horky
Australian Collection Development



