AustLit

'The great bequests of Russell and Mab Grimwade have opened up extraordinary opportunities for the University of Melbourne, enabling an exciting range of initiatives.

Through the Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellows program, Australia has benefited from the visits of more than a hundred international academics. The University's cultural collections have been enriched by the treasures of the Grimwades' collections of art, rare books and Australiana. Russell Grimwade's passion for chemistry, appreciation of art and sense of obligation to preserve the past has driven the development of the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. Russell's first allegiance may have been to biochemistry, but he had a wider vision: to fund the 'birth of an antipodean Clarendon Press' at Melbourne University Press. The distinguished Miegunyah imprint has realised his ambition and this book is the most recent volume in that series.'

The Grimwades' bequests still remain one of the University of Melbourne's most significant gifts. This is the story of Russell and Mab Grimwade and their legacy to the Australian nation. (Source: Publisher's website)

'L. L. Smith, medico, writer, publisher, politician, litigant, showman, speculator, collector, vigneron, farmer, breeder and rider of racehorses, guiding hand for thirty years of Melbourne's great exhibition complex...

'The Audacious Adventures of Dr Louis Lawrence Smith is a captivating biography of a mercurial man.

'Two hardback volumes in slip-case.' (Publication summary)

'Alfred Felton, a bachelor of definite opinions and benignly eccentric habits, was one of the remarkable group of Melbourne merchants who dominated the economy of the Australian colonies in the decades after the gold rush. In 1904 he left his substantial fortune in trust, the income to be spent by a committee of his friends, half on charities (especially for women and children), and half on works of art for the National Gallery of Victoria, works calculated to raise and improve public taste . The Gallery suddenly gained acquisition funds greater than those of London s National and Tate galleries combined, and between 1904 and 2004 more than 15 000 items were purchased for it by the Felton Bequest. ' (Publication summary)