Scarce and important description of the Brookesian Museum, the celebrated private anatomical and zoological museum in London founded by the anatomist Joshua Brookes. The museum contained more than 6000 human and animal specimens assembled for the study of comparative anatomy and ranked among the finest private scientific collections in Britain.

Scarce and important description of the Brookesian Museum, the celebrated private anatomical and zoological museum in London founded by the anatomist Joshua Brookes. The museum contained more than 6000 human and animal specimens assembled for the study of comparative anatomy and ranked among the finest private scientific collections in Britain.

Although resembling a preliminary notice issued in 1827, the present substantially changed issue is of greater significance. Produced after Brookes embraced William Sharp Macleay's "Quinarian System" of zoological classification, it was rewritten to incorporate Macleay's ideas and thereby preserves an important contemporary link between the Brookes Museum and the Macleay family, whose collections and scientific work would become one of the foundations of Australian zoology.

Issued in advance of the series of sales that dispersed the museum in 1830, the pamphlet incorporates extensive revisions and addition, the most striking of which is the Venn-like diagram on page 19 illustrating the relationships proposed by Macleay's work, while the final third of the text has been comprehensively rewritten, expanding the publication from sixteen to twenty pages and introducing an entirely new zoological arrangement based upon Macleay's classification.

Brookes was evidently well acquainted with both Alexander Macleay and his son William Sharp Macleay; the influence of their zoological researches may well explain the museum's unusually rich representation of Australasian marsupials. The catalogue records: "Skeletons of most of the Genera… There are two Skeletons of adult Kangaroos… A Skeleton likewise of the Halmaturus Rufus, Hypsiprymnus Potoroo; as well as the Petaurus… and many Crania of other Genera."

William Sharp Macleay followed closely in the scientific footsteps of his father Alexander. Although born in London and remaining in Europe until his early forties, he settled in Sydney in 1839, occupying and later inheriting Elizabeth Bay House, where he became one of the colony's leading scientific and intellectual figures. On his death in 1865 his collections and library passed to the Macleay Museum, ensuring that the scientific ideas reflected in this revised catalogue would become closely associated with the history of Australian natural history.

Despite the Brookes Museum's engagement with the scientific work of the Macleays, and the significance of this catalogue for the history and influence of Australian zoology, this is not recorded as being held in any Australian public collection.

Brookes's revisions extend well beyond terminology. Even the museum's title is modernised, the spelling changing from "Brookesean" in the 1827 issue to "Brookesian" here, while alterations occur throughout the text: for example, "The effect of Fire-arms" becomes the more learned "The effect of scloppetic weapons."

The final third of the work is extensively rewritten, expanding the publication from sixteen to twenty pages. The section on Reptilia grows from a brief notice into a systematic treatment of five orders comprising seven families; Amphibia is introduced as a separate class occupying a further two pages; the treatment of Animalia Invertebrata is approximately doubled; Hydatides is reclassified under Acriata; Mollusca is substantially enlarged and reorganised; Insecta becomes the more clearly defined class Annulosa; and Zoophyta is replaced by Radiata.

Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819, Brookes was among Regency London's foremost teachers of anatomy, attracting medical students, naturalists and collectors from Britain and abroad. Forced by declining health to retire from teaching in 1826, he unsuccessfully attempted to sell the museum intact before dispersing it by auction. The first sale commenced on 1 March 1830 and continued over the following twenty-two days, many specimens subsequently entering important institutional and private collections.