Paper Empires : A History of the Book in Australia 1946-2005 9780702242120, 9780702235733

Citation preview

‘Paper Empires for the first time tells the intriguing story of Australia’s exploration of itself through books.’ FRANK MOORHOUSE

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paper empires A H I S T O RY O F T H E B O O K I N AU S T R A L I A 1946–2005

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Edited by Craig

Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright

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Paper Empires a HISTORY of the BOOK in

AUSTRALIA 1946–2005

Paper Empires

a HISTORY of the BOOK in

AUSTRALIA 1946–2005

Edited by Craig Munro & Robyn Sheahan-Bright Founding editor John Curtain 1939–99

First published 2006 by University of Queensland Press Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.uq.edu.au Compilation and Introduction © Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright 2006 Essays and case-studies © individual authors This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Typeset by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane, Queensland Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group Cataloguing in Publication Data National Library of Australia Paper empires: A history of the book in Australia 1946-2005. Includes index. Bibliography. ISBN 0 7022 3559 8 (v. 3 : hbk.). ISBN 0 7022 3573 3 (v. 3 : pbk.). ISBN 0 7022 4212 0 (v.3 : pdf.).

1. Book industries and trade - Australia. 2. Publishers and publishing - Australia. I. Munro, Craig, 1950- . II. Sheahan-Bright, Robyn. 070.50994

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

ix xi THE R ISE OF PUBLISHING

CHAPTER 1

After the War

Craig Munro and John Curtain

Case-studies: Anglo-Australian Relations in the Book Trade Brigid Magner Flagship Angus & Robertson George Ferguson with Neil James A&R’s Takeover Crisis Craig Munro Andrew Fabinyi and Cheshire John McLaren Frank Eyre and Oxford University Press David Cunningham They’re a Weird Mob and Ure Smith David Carter

3 7 10 13 19 21 24

CHAPTER 2

Sixties Larrikins

Frank Thompson

Case-studies: Jacaranda Press and Brian Clouston Gregory Blaxell Lansdowne and Lloyd O’Neil John Currey Rigby Limited Michael Page Sun Books John Arnold Packer Publications Bridget Griffen-Foley Horwitz Anthony May

31 34 38 41 43 47 50

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Contents

CHAPTER 3

New Wave Seventies Jim Hart

53

Case-studies: The New A&R Richard Walsh Inner-urban and Outback Morry Schwartz Currency Press Katharine Brisbane UQP Frank Thompson Fremantle Arts Centre Press Ron Blaber DW Thorpe and the Book Trade Joyce Thorpe Nicholson

57 63 66 73 76 78

CHAPTER 4

Into the Global Era Michael Webster Case-studies: 2001 Publishing Report Card Craig Munro Thirty Years On Robert Sessions Allen & Unwin Louise Poland Lonely Planet Tony Wheeler McPhee Gribble Diana Gribble Magabala Books Diana Giese Text Publishing Anne Galligan

81 85 89 93 105 108 111 113

CHAPTER 5

Bookfutures

Richard Walsh

Case-studies: Content Streaming Simone Murray Publishers On-line Anne Galligan Copyright and Electronic Text Leanne Wiseman

118 125 131 134

BOOK BUSINESS CHAPTER 6

Writers Robyn Sheahan-Bright and Craig Munro

139

Case-studies: Writers Centres Robyn Sheahan-Bright Indigenous Writers Craig Munro

146 150

Contents

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Festival Big Top Ruth Starke National Book Council Thomas Shapcott The Australian/Vogel Literary Award Tess Brady Literature and the State Stuart Glover

156 160 163 166

CHAPTER 7

Editing, Design and Production Craig Munro Case-studies: Beatrice Davis Jacqueline Kent Editors and Authors Hilary McPhee The Orchard Kath McLean Editing Indigenous Writing Josie Douglas and Robyn Sheahan-Bright Commissioning Diane Brown Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang Paul Eggert Illustrated Books Guy Mirabella

174 177 182 185 189 191 195 198

CHAPTER 8

The Retail Book Trade

Michael Zifcak

Case-studies: Margareta Webber’s Bookshop Laurel Clark The Little Bookroom Albert Ullin Collins Booksellers Michael Zifcak Gordon & Gotch Denis Cryle Bookworld – Where You Never Pay Full Price

202

Terry Herbert

214 217 221 224 228

R EACHING R EADERS CHAPTER 9

Beyond Bestsellers Emma Hegarty

235

Case-studies: Periodicals David Carter and Roger Osborne Pulp Fiction Ian Morrison New Life for the Colonial Classic Robbery Under Arms Paul Eggert Feminist Publishing Diane Brown and Susan Hawthorne Multicultural Literature Sonia Mycak

239 257 260 263 268

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Contents

CHAPTER 10

For Children and Young Adults

Robyn Sheahan-Bright

Case-studies: The Children’s Book Council of Australia Mark Macleod Postwar Pioneers Marcie Muir Building New Lists Barbara Ker Wilson Omnibus Books Jane Covernton Scholastic Australia Robyn Sheahan-Bright Penguins and Puffins Robin Morrow Translations and Overseas Editions Kerry White

278 289 293 296 299 302 307 310

CHAPTER 11

Educational and Reference Publishing and Don Drummond

Gregory Blaxell

Case-studies: Curriculum Materials Gregory Blaxell and Don Drummond US Educational Publishers John Collins University Presses Frank Thompson Dictionaries and Style Guides Susan Butler Government Publishing Frank Thompson

314 322 325 328 336 340

CHAPTER 12

Readers and Reading

Patrick Buckridge

344

Case-studies: Baby Boomers at Play Patrick Buckridge Biggles and Beyond – A Young Man’s Reading John Nieman The Women’s Weekly and ‘Good Reading’ Patrick Buckridge Romancing the Reader Ingrid Day Public Libraries – Books, Bytes, Buildings, Brains Alan Bundy The Role of National and State Libraries Cathrine Harboe-Ree

349 356 362 368 373 378

Notes on Contributors Illustrations Further Reading Index

382 394 395 413

Acknowledgments We would like to thank our small band of History of the Book colleagues – Wallace Kirsop and Elizabeth Webby (to 1890) and Martyn Lyons and John Arnold (1891–1945) – for their years of dedication to this multi-volume project. Because of the rapid expansion of the book trade in the postwar period, the 1946–2005 volume has taken somewhat longer to complete than originally anticipated, and we thank our many contributors for their undiminished enthusiasm. We also thank former publishers Frank Thompson and Richard Walsh for their constructive advice, and other publishers and booksellers – including Diana Gribble, Hilary McPhee, Bob Sessions, Jim Hart, John Collins, Gregory Blaxell, Don Drummond and Michael Zifcak – for their encouragement and assistance. Textual scholar Paul Eggert contributed his wide knowledge of book history, while Michael Webster provided invaluable commentary on the recent book trade. Patrick Buckridge helped coordinate the key area of readers and reading. The John Curtain publishing archive at RMIT, now under Michael Webster’s supervision, was an essential resource, as was the Thorpe book trade archive in Melbourne which supplied a number of illustrations. In its initial stages, the History of the Book project received Australian Research Council support, mostly absorbed by the trailblazing earlier volumes. The Publishing Research List, an electronic forum for postgraduate and postdoctoral scholars working on book publishing in Australia and New Zealand, initiated in 2000 by Louise Poland and Kath McLean, provided much useful information as well as a number of specialist contributors. Anne Galligan and David Carter, as well as Tom O’Regan and others, organised publishing history seminars which facilitated research for this

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volume. For administrative assistance during the extended development phase, we thank Rose Little and the office of John Bright and Associates Architects. Finally, we wish to remember our colleague, John Curtain, who would be pleased to see his dream become a reality.

Introduction In recent times the Australian book trade has witnessed a paperback revolution and the advent of international publishing conglomerates as well as the previously unimaginable world of the Internet. Because such changes have not yet been fully documented, this volume makes extensive use of oral history and memoir, taking core samples from the different strata of book production, selling and reading. Among these personalised casestudies are Albert Ullin’s memoir of founding his children’s bookshop – the first in the country – and Terry Herbert’s account of building a discount book empire from his Queensland provincial city. John Nieman evocatively recalls his boyhood reading and those eagerly awaited visits to the local lending library at a time when most Australian households did not possess more than a few reference books. In the postwar era, book publishing went from a handful of fledgling businesses to the billion-dollar industry of today which generates many thousands of new titles each year along with a seemingly unlimited flow of imported titles. Australia does export books too, including school texts for the giant US market. As a relatively small English-language book market, Australia remains a happy hunting ground for the big global producers headquartered in the United States and the United Kingdom. Economies of scale are certainly a vital factor; however, it also cannot be denied that, as Andrew Fabinyi once ruefully observed, Australia’s financial entrepreneurs have not generally been prepared to invest in book publishing. This is one of the reasons, along with the crippling costs of book distribution, that so many of our smaller publishers are taken over by conglomerates. Despite the huge growth in local publishing, more than half of all non-educational books are still imported.

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Introduction

Book publishing divides into two almost equal parts: trade publishing (including fiction and non-fiction) and educational publishing. The postwar expansion of publishing began very much in the educational area, with the baby boom and increased spending on schools and libraries. At the end of the century, such publishing was leading the way into lucrative export markets. In the more specialist tertiary area, US players such as Prentice Hall and John Wiley infiltrated this hitherto Britishcontrolled zone, while the growth of Australian university presses – led by Melbourne University Press and the University of Queensland Press – provided some local scholarly publishing. Indigenous writing and publishing have been significant new areas in recent years. Paper Empires records the industry’s modern founders and shapers, including Beatrice Davis, George Ferguson, Andrew Fabinyi, Sam Ure Smith, Brian Clouston and Lloyd O’Neil. Creative partnerships have also been important, notably those of Tony and Maureen Wheeler, Diana Gribble and Hilary McPhee, and Sue Williams and Jane Covernton. The paper empires they created – Lonely Planet, McPhee Gribble and Omnibus – quickly became synonymous with quality publishing in the areas of travel, fiction and children’s books. Other publishers, such as Magabala Books in Broome or Melbourne’s iconoclastic Outback Press, were collective enterprises. Although there is not the space to cover every publisher or bookselling group, there are examples from different decades. Chapters on the book’s life-cycle investigate the ecology of writing, editing and design as well as the business of retailing. Among the genres explored in this wide-ranging volume are travel books, pulp fiction, feminist publishing, classic reissues, multicultural literature and the astonishing variety of journals and magazines. In children’s publishing, the significant role played by editors such as Frank Eyre, Barbara Ker Wilson, Anne Bower Ingram, Rosalind Price, Julie Watts and many others has ensured that Australian books for young people are now highly regarded internationally. As this volume was going to press, Lothian – the longest surviving local publisher – was sold to Time Warner, ending an ownership history that began in 1888 with John Inglis Lothian, Peter Lothian’s greatgrandfather. The Time Warner Book Group has now been sold to the French-based Hachette Livre, making Hachette the world’s third-largest

Introduction

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trade publisher. Such takeovers have been common in recent decades. A highlight of Paper Empires is the detailed history of a small selection of individual books, starting with the story of Nino Culotta’s homegrown bestseller They’re a Weird Mob (Ure Smith, 1957), pieced together by David Carter who interviewed the original publisher, Sam Ure Smith. John O’Grady’s pseudonymous novel was the first to entertain a mass readership with the familiar accents of postwar Australia, anticipating later film and television explorations of the vernacular. In other book profiles, Kath McLean tells the story of Drusilla Modjeska’s The Orchard and Paul Eggert unravels the international editorial intrigue behind Peter Carey’s Booker Prize–winning True History of the Kelly Gang. The death of the book, like the death of the author, has been predicted – both metaphorically and literally – for many years. In the mid-1990s, Australian research commissioned by the Keating government accurately predicted that the immediate future for communications technology would see the saturation use of mobile phones.Ten years later, we are still waiting patiently for an e-book to come somewhere near matching the portability, readability and reliability of the paper models perfected over two millennia.

THE RISE OF PUBLISHING

CHAPTER 1

After the War Craig Munro and John Curtain The history of the book in Australia may be characterised as the movement of durable cultural goods over very large distances. Raw material was dispatched to Britain in the form of stories and other texts to be converted into books at the industrial heart of Empire. These were then shipped back to the Antipodes along with numerous other books to satisfy the prodigious appetites of Australian readers. Local publishing was a sideline undertaken by enterprising printers and booksellers. After the Second World War the chief buyer for Angus & Robertson’s Sydney emporium, Hedley Jeffries, ordered such quantities of bestselling titles – as many as a thousand copies at a time – that London publishers would positively swoon.They had even been known to postpone a decision on print quantity until Jeffries had cabled through his order from the other side of the world. At such a distance from their source of supply, Australia’s purveyors of books were resourceful entrepreneurs, without the luxury of sale-orreturn. But booksellers were also well organised, controlling the discounts they received on imported stock. This was the price British publishers paid to stay in charge of supply. In collusion with the Americans, Britain had carved up the world’s English-language book markets and Australia was very much the jewel in the British bulldog’s crown. Australia’s continuing colonial status was formalised in the so-called ‘Traditional Market Agreement’ between the two wartime allies on either side of the Atlantic.

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Paper Empires

Under this arrangement, the two superpowers agreed that Australia would remain the exclusive domain of British publishing. In splendid isolation at the bottom of Asia, Australia and its canny booksellers revelled in being a captive colonial market. By mid-century no less than 10 per cent of British publishing output was exported to Australia, swamping local publishers with a veritable flood of imported product. Only during wartime was there a respite, with restrictions on the importation of non-essential goods. In the early 1940s Australian books began to proliferate, printed on anything resembling paper. Local publishers also secured licences to print their own editions of British books. As they were not subject to wartime rationing, all these locally produced books could be obtained without using valuable coupons. A few thoughtful souls rather liked the novelty of producing their own cultural goods, so at war’s end the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) called for a Tariff Board inquiry into the publishing industry. Optimistically, they hoped to stimulate more local production at the expense of imports. King Canute could not hold back the rising tide and neither could the well-meaning FAW. The various writers’ groups disagreed on the need for tariffs, although they did pluckily propose a 25 per cent Australian quota for libraries and even bookshops. To qualify, books would have to be written and published locally.Tax relief for authors was among the wide range of other proposals, as was a recommendation to overhaul the Commonwealth Literary Fund. The inquiry should have come up with a blueprint for a more dynamic and independent book culture. Instead there was disappointment: no tariffs and certainly no quotas (a regime later enthusiastically and successfully adopted by Australian television regulators). Brigid Magner highlights the significance of this inquiry in her case-study. In 1948, when the Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) was founded, just 15 per cent of books sold were of local origin. In 1953, when a quarter of all British book exports went down under, only a few Australian publishers (including Angus & Robertson, Melbourne University Press and FW Cheshire) produced more than a handful of titles each year. The ABPA came into being twenty years after the national booksellers association and was formed on the initiative of companies, such as A&R, that were also booksellers. Not surprisingly, the ABPA was

After the War

5

preoccupied with bookselling concerns in its early years.A&R’s publisher George Ferguson (1910–98) was ABPA president for much of the 1950s, and his case-study provides more detail on this period. Most books then sold in Australia were British books and so naturally membership of the new publishers association included the local branches of British firms. Before the advent of trade practices restrictions and notions of commercial collusion, the book trade remained something of a closed shop, with manufacturers and retailers looking after each other’s mutual interests. The structure of this trade was based on a negotiated ‘Statement of Terms’ between retailers and their British suppliers to maintain uniform Australian prices.The Statement of Terms differed from the United Kingdom’s own Net Book Agreement. In Britain publishers set retail prices, whereas in Australia booksellers used an agreed pricing conversion table for imports. They also set educational and other discounts. If booksellers broke the terms of this agreement they would no longer be entitled to a trade discount from any British or Australian publisher. As publishers would supply only approved retailers, uncontrolled discounting was effectively suppressed by this Sicilian-style code of honour. Things changed, however, when British publishers such as Longman, Collins and Harrap began setting up their own Australian stock-holding warehouses after the war. They now controlled both discounts and retail prices. The more buoyant mood of the 1950s, with its emphasis on consumerism after the wartime austerities, brought about new publishing opportunities, particularly in the education sector.The postwar improvement in school retention rates, the baby-boom-led population surge and greater spending on education by a more affluent society encouraged booksellers in each state to develop educational publishing lists. These bookseller–publishers included Cheshire in Melbourne, Carrols in Perth, Rigby in Adelaide, A&R and Dymocks in Sydney, and McLeod’s in Brisbane, along with the ever-present branch offices of British firms. As new and established players responded to the opportunities of the educational boom, they also started to respond to a growing demand for Australian general books. Brian Clouston from McLeod’s Bookshop joined with Brisbane printers H. Pole & Co. in 1954 to found Jacaranda Press. In 1960 Lloyd O’Neil moved from Jacaranda to start Lansdowne Press in Melbourne, with capital provided by a family inheritance. The

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Paper Empires

financial success of such diversification was part of the postwar phase of ‘national awakening’ which began to create real interest in Australia’s emerging book culture. The new publishers, however, were starting out with only limited capital and their market was necessarily limited to Australia. As George Ferguson observed after trying to sell his wares in London, it did not occur to Britain’s book barons that Australians would publish books as well as buy them. For conspicuously successful operators like A&R the threat of takeover became a fact of publishing life, as outlined in the second case-study. The potential for success in Australia’s now more volatile book trade enabled talented publishers like Andrew Fabinyi, a refugee from Nazism, and Britisher Frank Eyre of Oxford University Press (OUP) to flourish. (Both are featured in case-studies.) Penguin established a Melbourne office and warehouse in 1946, selling about half a million books in the first year, all with Penguin, Pelican or Puffin imprints. In that same year Fabinyi began his highly successful publishing career with Cheshire. Within a couple of years the University of Queensland Press commenced publishing in Brisbane and Heinemann established a Melbourne office. In 1950 another European refugee (this time from communism), Michael Zifcak, joined Collins Book Depot and began his influential, fifty-year career in the book trade. In 1955 George Ferguson was Australia’s first official visitor to the Frankfurt Book Fair. That year also saw the establishment of a Publishers Association Committee (later the Australian Book Trade Advisory Committee). This was formed by British and Australian publishers and booksellers to ensure that compatible standards were maintained in the mainly one-way trade between them.The ABPA collected local publishing statistics for the first time in 1957 and, as a sign of things to come, the US firm Doubleday set up a Sydney publishing office and bookclub. American college publishers were also active, riding a boom brought about by the sudden expansion of US tertiary education after Russia took an early lead in the space race. Already beginning to expand their distribution arrangements in Australia by the end of the decade, these well-organised US firms later came to dominate the local tertiary textbook market. Where British reps tended to call on professors, US reps homed in on hard-working junior lecturers with lucrative first-year subjects.

After the War

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Perhaps the most unlikely book trade event of the postwar period was the shock appearance, in 1957, of They’re a Weird Mob by one ‘Nino Culotta’. This comic novel offended and entertained readers from one end of the country to the other, selling a million copies in the process, and putting the small firm of Ure Smith firmly on the publishing map. The story of this pioneering Aussie success, which is as engaging as the novel itself, concludes this chapter. NOTE ON SOURCES John Curtain, ‘Book Publishing’, in Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner (eds), The Media in Australia: Industries, Texts, Audiences, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1993, pp. 102–18; John Curtain, ‘The Development of Book Publishing in Australia’, Monash University MA thesis, 1997; Geoffrey Dutton, A Rare Bird: Penguin Books in Australia 1946–96, Melbourne, Penguin, 1996; Joyce Thorpe Nicholson and Daniel Wrixon Thorpe, A Life of Books: The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd 1921–87, Melbourne, Courtyard Press, 2000; ABPA archives, Sydney. See also Chapter 8 for more on the postwar trade.

Case-study: Anglo-Australian Relations in the Book Trade BRIGID MAGNER As Australia has been Britain’s largest export market since 1889, it is not surprising that the local book market was dominated and defended by London publishers throughout most of the twentieth century. John McLaren has argued that ‘no part of society maintained the imperial pattern more consistently than the publishers and booksellers who exploited an Australian market held captive by its distance from the owners of capital’. The colonial edition, created by British publishers for colonial readers, began in 1843 (in Graeme Johanson’s words) as a ‘hasty, experimental expedient and ended in 1972 as a cornerstone of British–Australian control over production, distribution and sale of all books in Australia’. Furthermore, colonial editions performed a pivotal role in sustaining the structural remnants of the British book trade once the Empire began to decline in the early twentieth century. The Anglo–Australian publishing pattern has always been a predominantly one-way affair, as A&R’s George Ferguson comments in the next case-study. For much of the twentieth century the Australian book trade

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was constrained by the Traditional Market Agreement. According to this controversial agreement, Australian-owned publishing companies were not permitted to acquire separate rights to British-originated books. A British publisher buying rights from an American publisher automatically obtained rights to the whole British Empire (except Canada); the US publisher was then obliged to cease supplying the book to Australia and could not sell Australian rights to any Australian publisher. This arrangement, which officially continued until the mid-1970s, gave British publishers privileged access to the Australian market and inevitably led to a restricted local book culture. The Second World War indirectly benefited Australian literary culture because it offered opportunities for independent operations that were unimaginable ordinarily. The 1945–46 Tariff Board inquiry, conducted into the Australian publishing industry, was a follow-up to the board’s 1930 inquiry which had been instigated by the printers’ union. In the 1940s it was writers who called for a postwar inquiry and the main issue discussed was the fear of cheap British books flooding the market once wartime controls were relaxed. The inquiry concluded that ‘High-grade Australian work can and does find a ready market, not only in Australia but also in other parts of the world’. As Carol Mills remarks, ‘this was an idealistic and uninformed opinion, as Australian publishing at the time was by no means strong enough to sustain its viability’. As with the earlier inquiry, a tariff on books was rejected in 1946. One of the most important factors behind the expansion of publishing in postwar Australia was the growth of educational publishing. Although this proved to be a profitable enterprise, it did not lead to substantial independence from British firms. Along with local publishers, British companies were quick to take advantage of the boom, setting up offices and warehouses and establishing local programs. In 1961, publisher Allen Lane wrote to his fellow Penguin board member W. E. Williams: ‘My own feeling is that Australia is about to emerge, speaking from a publishing point of view, into a creative phase in place of an absorbent one.’ This ‘absorbent phase’ had consistently provided British publishers with substantial profits in the years since white settlement. Recognising the possible consequences of a ‘creative’ phase, Allen Lane initiated an Australian publishing program. This home-grown list

After the War

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was received well within Australia, but English readers did not respond with sufficient interest to necessitate extensive exports to the UK. The local publishing boom continued well into the 1970s, with the value of Australian publishing doubling three times over the period 1961–79. This trend was also accompanied by the rise of a few independent publishers modelled on American radical presses. Even though many of these enterprises were short-lived, they provided vital publishing opportunities for new writing considered too alternative or unprofitable by British-based firms. Unfortunately, the late 1970s saw a collapse of the affluent phase which had begun during the early 1960s. As a result, Australian publishing became virtually dominated by overseas firms, but now through local rather than London offices. Another significant development in the 1970s was the antitrust action taken by the US Department of Justice against the Traditional Market Agreement in 1974 after complaints were made by a number of Australian-owned publishers.The case was finally settled in 1976 with a formal prohibition of the agreement, yet British publishers’ arrangements mostly continued in an ‘unofficial’ capacity. The derivative structures of the Australian publishing industry have rendered it vulnerable to exploitation throughout its history, mainly by British interests. Time after time since World War II, inquiries have been made into the nature of the British influence on Australian publishing. Solutions have been suggested but no substantial change has been effected. Transnational corporations have now begun to assume the role formerly occupied by British publishing companies. A global publishing economy raises questions about the viability of previous publishing patterns and presents new challenges. Although still open to the predations of the large corporations which govern the publishing scene, the Australian book trade may be able to use technological developments to better access the world market for books. NOTE ON SOURCES John McLaren, ‘Publishing in the Twentieth Century’, The Book in Australia, Historical Bibliography Monograph no. 16, p. 66; Wallace Kirsop, ‘Modern Australian Publishing: An Historical Perspective’, and Carol Mills, ‘Australian Book Supply and Australiana: A Battle Against Closed Markets’, in Australian Studies: Acquisition and Collection Development for Libraries, London, Mansell Publishing Limited, 1992; Graham Johanson, Colonial

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Editions in Australia, 1843–1972, Wellington, Elibank Press, 2000; Allen Lane’s letter in Hilary McPhee’s Other People’s Words, Sydney, Picador, 2001, p. 62; publishing statistics from Hans Hoegh Guldberg’s Books – Who Reads Them? A Study of Borrowing and Buying in Australia, Sydney, Economic Strategies Limited, 1990. See also Chapter 8 on imports.

Case-study: Flagship Angus & Robertson GEORGE FERGUSON with Neil James I started working for Angus & Robertson in my university days, around 1927. At that time they were booksellers, publishers and printers, but I worked part-time in the bookselling side. After I took my degree I became full-time, working for some years in various departments of the bookshop at 89 Castlereagh Street. I also worked at Halstead Press, the company’s printing arm, where I learned typesetting on a linotype machine. Later on in the 1930s I joined the publishing side. Working in the firm where my grandfather George Robertson was publisher couldn’t have been a better introduction to publishing. He was an extremely able publisher. On the other side of the coin, he could be difficult if you crossed him. After George Robertson died in 1933, Walter Cousins became publisher. He was a very pleasant person to deal with but he collided a bit with Albert Ritchie who was chairman of the board. I was away during the war years and Beatrice Davis became the leading editor. She joined the firm in 1937 and was a magnificent editor. She was hard-working and able to deal with very difficult people. She put together and trained what was Australia’s first professional editorial team, with people like Nan McDonald, Elizabeth Hughes, Alec Bolton and Rosemary Dobson. After the war we also established educational publishing under Colin Roderick. He and Beatrice didn’t always see eye to eye and they famously disagreed over They’re a Weird Mob. In 1949 Walter Cousins died and I was appointed publisher. The next decade or so was a period of enormous expansion.Titles by Colin Simpson, Frank Clune and Ion Idriess were all in full flight and some of the standard books like Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and The Magic Pudding were still doing well. You’d snap your fingers and print another 10 000 every year without even thinking about it. Such solid sales meant that we

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were able to publish more literary titles – books by poets such as David Campbell and Judith Wright. Beatrice developed an important list of new fiction writers, including Hal Porter and Thea Astley. I often used to say that many a first novel saw the light of day on the back of the Commonsense Cookery Book. Our publishing activities were helped by the fact that we were also booksellers. If we hadn’t been booksellers I’m sure that a lot of our books would not have been published. Angus & Robertson may not have published a lot of the non-commercial books without the Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) and many of these titles made a loss even after the guarantee was paid. The CLF was very effective in encouraging the production of such books in the first decades after the war, a sign that the government at a high level was interested in book publishing. Angus & Robertson had dealings with the Commonwealth government over a number of issues. Robert Menzies, who had shared chambers with my father before the war, was always extremely helpful. Menzies was a great supporter of the industry generally, and was a guest at the inaugural Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) dinner in Canberra. On the Labor side, I don’t think we ever had much to do with Chifley, but Evatt we used to see quite a lot. We published one of his books. As the major Australian publisher before and after the war, Angus & Robertson put a lot of effort into developing the ABPA.There were others, such as Andrew Fabinyi at Cheshire, Sam Ure Smith at Ure Smith and Frank Eyre at Oxford University Press, but they were more restricted in the areas in which they published. At Angus & Robertson we were conscious of playing a leadership role in helping the industry and other publishers to develop. I think we regarded it as part of our duty. The first two editions of the ten-volume Australian Encyclopaedia were undertaken by Angus & Robertson entirely on its own without any subsidy and took a decade to produce. I don’t think there was any great difficulty in convincing the shareholders or Board of Directors that they should commit the resources. Our other major reference works were Morris Miller’s Bibliography of Australian Literature, H. M. Green’s History of Australian Literature and of course my father’s Bibliography of Australia. One of the other major achievements of this period was the spreading of Australian books overseas. After the war we spent a lot of time and

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a good deal of money developing Australian books in England and to a lesser extent in America and Asia. Events such as the Frankfurt Book Fair became very important in raising the profile of Australian books. In those days even well-known British publishers, who were used to selling books in Australia, didn’t seem to consider that people in Australia would publish books as well as buy them. Our bookshop in London wasn’t very profitable but it did sell a good many Australian books. We were not just fighting attitudes in Britain. Many people in Australia did not recognise the value of Australian books. At the end of the 1950s,Angus & Robertson moved into new premises in George Street and out of the old shop. When Walter Burns attempted to take over Angus & Robertson, it made life extremely difficult. He bought enough shares to be appointed managing director, but he was certainly a liability not an asset. He put a freeze on all publishing and made that famous remark that ‘from now on we are only going to publish bestsellers’. In the 1960s I became managing director as well as publisher and at the end of the decade Gordon Barton launched a successful takeover bid and brought about the end of an era for Angus & Robertson. I left the company in 1970.The philosophy of Angus & Robertson changed quite considerably after the takeover. I think one might say that the thoughts of those in charge were more about money and less about books. NOTE ON SOURCES Neil James, ‘Basically We Thought About Books – An Interview with George Ferguson’, Publishing Studies, no. 5, 1997, pp. 8–16. Other key sources for A&R in this period include Neil James’ Sydney University PhD thesis (2000), ‘Spheres of Influence: Angus & Robertson and Australian Literature from the Thirties to the Sixties’, his article on Ferguson and A&R in Publishing Studies, no. 7, 1999, pp. 6–16, Alec Bolton’s ‘Publishing in an Age of Innocence: A&R in the 1950s’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, 1995, pp. 12–20, Jacqueline Kent’s A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis – A Literary Life, Melbourne, Viking, 2001, and the extensive A&R archive in Mitchell Library, Sydney, which includes 150 hours of research interviews conducted by Neil James.

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Case-study: A&R’s Takeover Crisis CRAIG MUNRO The first battle for Angus & Robertson began quietly in late 1959 and raged throughout 1960. A&R was then the most powerful force in Australian bookselling and publishing. Its nearest rival, Cheshire, produced only twenty new titles a year. Other smaller publishers included Ure Smith, Melbourne University Press, Georgian House and Oxford University Press, while Jacaranda in Brisbane and Rigby in Adelaide concentrated on educational publishing. Travel and popular history writers provided A&R with much of its publishing revenue, while the Commonsense Cookery Book topped a million copies. Literary titles were the province of senior editor Beatrice Davis, who published annual poetry and story anthologies as well as the work of novelists like Xavier Herbert and Katharine Susannah Prichard. Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s first book of poetry was on A&R’s 1960 list, as were new books by Geoffrey Blainey, Manning Clark, Ivan Southall and Patricia Wrightson. In charge of educational and technical publishing was a former teacher and lecturer, Colin Roderick, who possessed the then rare qualification of a PhD. At that time, A&R produced everything from meat inspection manuals to books on nursing, arithmetic and domestic science.The firm’s centrepiece was the ten-volume Australian Encyclopaedia (1958). That a company of such venerable stature should come under threat was almost inconceivable. Yet 1960 was to be a watershed year in cultural terms. For the first time, the new ABC and commercial television networks were operating in every capital city. Books would now have to compete with a pervasive new medium of entertainment and information. Along with television came more paperbacks. Although A&R had published a wartime series of ‘pocket’ paperbacks, they’d been postponing for years the decision to start a new paperback imprint. They stuck to real books – jacketed, cloth-bound hardbacks – even though it was already becoming apparent that the postwar baby-boom generation would be raised on a revolutionary diet of television and paperbacks. The first A&R war was precipitated by a New Zealander who was short of stature but long on ambition. By temperament as well as nationality

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Walter Vincent Burns was a rank outsider. He had operated in a variety of businesses from slippers to textiles before settling in Sydney in the 1950s to wheel and deal in real estate and shares. He reputedly charged 500 guineas a time to run his gimlet eye over a company’s balance sheet. Angus & Robertson Ltd was without doubt an impressive-looking company, employing almost 600 staff in Australia, London and New Zealand. About half were involved in retailing, which was also the most profitable division. The Halstead Press printery, which had operated since the 1920s, now also accommodated the company’s warehouse in a new building at Kingsgrove. A&R headquarters were still in Castlereagh Street in the old three-storey building which had served the firm since the early days of George Robertson. The bookshop took up the basement and ground floor, while the publishing staff were crammed into a rabbit warren of offices on the upper levels, including one room which was accessible only by a steep flight of stairs. George Robertson would retreat to this hideout to avoid the invariably drunk and indigent Henry Lawson. It was A&R’s valuable Sydney and Melbourne properties which first attracted the speculative gaze of Mr Burns. Through his stockbroker Arthur Hordern (a member of the Sydney retailing dynasty), Burns steadily increased his shareholding in A&R Ltd and then successfully lobbied for a board vacancy in August 1959. The retiring director had been with the firm – man and boy – since 1902.With no book-industry experience, Burns joined the A&R board which was composed of the company’s own managers under the chairmanship of 71-year-old Albert Ritchie, a cigar-smoker whose office wall was lined with McCallum’s whisky bottletops. A past president of the Australian Booksellers Association, Ritchie had spent all his working life with the company. Board meetings were held each month in Ritchie’s office, where he also entertained many influential friends, including the NSW Police Commissioner. At that time, the board’s only regular monthly business consisted of listing share transfers and, once a year, approving a generous Christmas bonus to staff. The printing division, Halstead Press, was represented on the board by Aubrey Cousins, while George Ferguson was there in his role as publishing director. Both men had close family connections with the company. Cousins was the son of A&R’s previous publishing director, and George Ferguson was the grandson of George

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Robertson, A&R’s illustrious founder. An internationally respected publisher, the fifty-year-old Ferguson had been president of the Australian Book Publishers Association for almost a decade. He’d joined the company in the last days of his grandfather’s regime. ‘Holding to our tradition . . . is one of our greatest assets’, Ferguson wrote in A&R’s house journal, Fragment. ‘It is the duty of the old hands to pass it on, of the youngsters to learn it, of all to guard it.’ This then was the near-legendary institution which welcomed Walter Burns to its board meeting of September 1959. Burns was well aware that the company possessed tantalisingly undervalued property assets, and he cared not a fig for the firm’s history or reputation. Unlike the university-educated Ferguson, Burns had barely completed his primary schooling. The A&R board took pride in paying a regular 15 per cent dividend to shareholders, many of whom the board members knew personally. The big block of shares owned by the impatient Burns, however, now exceeded that of the Ferguson and Ritchie families. At his first board meetings, Burns queried the dividends and expressed astonishment that A&R had rejected They’re a Weird Mob. The man who was later charitably described in Nation as possessing a ‘restless, bright, adventuring, non-literary mind’ had stood on the footpath outside A&R headquarters and marvelled at all it represented – in real estate value, that is. ‘What a place for a takeover!’ Burns confided to an assistant. Not that he was alone in wanting a new direction for A&R. George Ferguson was becoming increasingly impatient with chairman Ritchie, and the publishing department desperately needed new premises. Burns initially impressed Ferguson and the more conservative directors, and it was Ferguson who in February 1960 proposed that Burns be made managing director. It was a move that Ferguson came to regret bitterly. Despite his lack of book-trade experience, Burns boasted that marketing books should be no different to selling soap. ‘Make the cash registers ring!’ he used to tell Beatrice Davis and her editors. Soon after his appointment as managing director, Burns halted production work on all new titles pending a review. He took on the newly created role of chief executive with such autocratic zeal that, within days, the old chairman Ritchie and another director resigned. This paved the way for the

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appointment of two Burns supporters to the board, including his broker, Arthur Hordern, who replaced Ritchie as chairman. For more than six months the Napoleonic managing director went on an erratic rampage, alienating almost the entire staff. His own assistant, the author Colin Simpson, left after only a few weeks, disillusioned, and there were numerous other resignations and sackings.The publishing department was cut in half and Ferguson was forbidden to pay authors any royalty advances. New projects were held up by committees of review, and rumours spread rapidly among A&R’s alarmed authors. It was now clear that Burns wanted to shut down publishing and sell off the Halstead printery. His priority was the expansion of retailing, but his motivation was to create a property-based empire. His dream was a twenty-storey high-rise on the site of the Castlereagh Street headquarters. For a few months A&R itself became a takeover merchant, doubling its nominal capital to a million pounds and acquiring other shops in prime locations around the country. These included the historic Robertson & Mullens in Melbourne and Swain & Co. in Pitt Street, Sydney. The takeovers were carried out by share exchanges which left Arthur (better known as ‘Mick’) Swain with a substantial holding in A&R and a place on the board. His shares ultimately decided the future of the company. In mid-July 1960, Burns flew to London to negotiate the sale of A&R’s Great Russell Street building, causing further mayhem among the staff there. Before he left for London, Burns lunched with one of A&R’s most prolific travel writers, Frank Clune, a tax accountant with a passion for both travel and outback history, particularly bushranging history. His long-time editor and ghost-writer, P. R. ‘Inky’ Stephensen, was also at the lunch. A former publisher, Stephensen had suffered public disgrace when his Australia First Movement was rounded up by security forces in 1942. He’d spent the rest of the war as an internee, falsely accused of being a spy. As a literary agent, Stephensen had been following the A&R turmoil with close interest. He assured Burns that A&R could greatly increase sales by selecting ‘books of popular appeal’. Returning from London, Burns appointed Stephensen as a ‘production and procurement executive’. Although Stephensen diplomatically described himself as an ‘editorial assistant’, Ferguson was outraged. Not only was Stephensen to

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be paid £1000 a year more than either Beatrice Davis or Colin Roderick, but he was to report directly to Burns. Stephensen was ostracised by the other editors and his appointment was the final straw for Ferguson. During the board meeting in early September 1960, which went on for several days, Ferguson called for Burns’ resignation, describing him as an ‘incompetent novice’ with a record of ‘bullying and persecution’, completely unfit to be managing director. When Hordern suddenly resigned as chairman because of ill-health, Ferguson found the ideal replacement: Norman (later Sir Norman) Cowper. Establishment with a capital ‘E’, Cowper was a senior partner with A&R’s legal firm and had been a lieutenant-colonel in the AIF. Cowper acted swiftly to stop Burns and his cohorts destroying the grand old firm. Although still nominally a director, Burns had lost his balance of power. Twice he failed to have a supporter elected to the board, Cowper neatly outmanoeuvring him each time. Burns then sought an audience with Sir Frank Packer – the country’s first television tycoon – to try to sell Packer his shares. Within a week Sir Frank had launched a full-scale takeover bid for A&R Ltd, formally advising Cowper on 17 October. That same day, Stephensen sent Burns an eighteen-page memo proposing that the company’s mass-market paperback scheme now be conducted ‘in association with a newspaper group’. Sir Frank had just bought the Sydney Bulletin, and A&R shares jumped 20 per cent on the news of his takeover bid. Packer was already a player in book publishing, owning not just the Shakespeare Head Press in Sydney but the equally profitable firm of Frederick Muller in London. Packer amended his A&R offer ten days later, and then wrote more beguilingly to Cowper that ‘a combination or merger of the two groups would give added strength and diversity’ to A&R Ltd. Noting that book sales would be affected by television, Packer pointed out that his Bulletin printery was ‘capable of producing high-quality paperbacks at an economical price’. A&R’s response was to sack Stephensen and reject Packer’s ‘merger’. The focus now shifted back to a very public showdown between the Ferguson/Cowper team and Burns in the lead-up to the forthcoming AGM. A group of thirty-four A&R authors – including Kenneth Slessor, D’Arcy Niland, Ruth Park, Dame Mary Gilmore and other luminaries – made

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headlines by threatening to break their contracts if Burns won. Because of his share-trading background, Burns knew that voting rights for an annual meeting were on a sliding scale: the smaller the shareholding, the greater the aggregate vote. So he secretly split up his large block of shares to maximise his support. In early December, less than two weeks before the AGM, Ferguson and Roderick discovered that Burns was share-splitting, so they frantically rearranged their shares into the minimum voting parcels. On the morning of the fateful AGM, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a mischievous Molnar cartoon. It depicted a tiny Burns asking, ‘But why publish Australian books? We can always import them from overseas.’ When the poll was counted, Ferguson and Cowper’s side was victorious by 23 000 votes to 14 000. The victory immediately gave A&R a much-needed sense of publishing purpose. Even before the AGM Beatrice Davis was organising the new Pacific Books paperback imprint which began publishing in ambitious runs of 20 000 copies by mid-1961. Max Harris in the Bulletin was scathing about the quality of these and the other paperback series then appearing from Horwitz and Rigby. A&R’s first line-up was nothing if not commercial, with Ion Idriess, Frank Clune and Morris West leading the charge, alongside the book version of Gwen Meredith’s Blue Hills. Harris criticised the ‘crude’ covers, the ‘worn-out’ typesetting and the ‘appalling’ paper of all three paperback series. That was pretty much the end of hostilities, except that Packer came back later in 1961 and bought three-quarters of a million A&R shares for nearly half a million pounds. Using his Sydney newspapers, Sir Frank mounted a vitriolic public campaign against Cowper and the A&R board in the run-up to the 1961 AGM. But he hadn’t counted on their newfound grasp of tactics. The Roderick share-splitting machine went into action once more, and when the votes were totalled the night before the AGM, Packer knew he’d lost. He did, however, command a seat on the board for a few months, until he forced A&R to arrange a buy-out of his holding which netted him a handsome £120 000 profit. From the United States – where his yacht Gretel was challenging for the America’s Cup – Packer had cabled that he was planning to sell his shares to American interests. The alarm bells rang at A&R and in London. A group of British publishers, led by Collins, was prepared to pay above market prices for Packer’s shares to keep American publishers out

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of the lucrative Australian book trade. Australia had always been a captive market for British books, and A&R cherished its links with London.The friendly Collins shareholding gave the old firm another decade’s grace before the traumatic takeover by Gordon Barton. NOTE ON SOURCES Craig Munro, ‘The A&R War: Profits, Personalities and Paperbacks’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, 1995, pp. 21–28. Colin Roderick was a key player in the battle and his papers in the National Library, Canberra, usefully supplement the main A&R archive in Mitchell Library. See also Jacqueline Kent’s Beatrice Davis biography, A Certain Style (2001).

Case-study: Andrew Fabinyi and Cheshire JOHN McLAREN Andrew Fabinyi (1908–78) came to Australia from Hungary in 1939 as a refugee from Nazism. He had worked for a bookseller in Budapest, and first found employment in Melbourne with Frank Cheshire, owner and head of the FW Cheshire bookshop in Little Collins Street. After war service in the Australian army, where he became responsible for the Australian Army Education Service libraries, he returned to FW Cheshire, where he developed both the bookselling and the publishing activities of the business. When the separate company FW Cheshire Publishing Pty Ltd was established, he became general manager. Although the backbone of Cheshire’s business in both publishing and bookselling was school and university textbooks, Cheshire’s bookshop was known for its comprehensive holdings of Australian books and books by leading European and American thinkers. It was an essential calling place for students or teachers whenever they came to the city, and it was from an office behind this basement bookstore that Fabinyi worked. I first met him when I was down from the country looking for books to add to my students’ wider reading lists. I wanted to interest him in a wild scheme I had to produce a children’s review. He listened patiently and courteously before explaining why he could not help and why my plan would not work. I saw him intermittently after this, but not enough to become friends rather than acquaintances. He occasionally attended the Twenty Club,

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a group of leftist writers and academics who met monthly for good food, wine and discussion. His contributions were always urbane and informed, but he let slip little of his personality. I grew to know him much better through his writing, and particularly through his annual reports in Meanjin on the state of Australian publishing. These tended to be gloomy, recording opportunities lost. Behind the gloom, however, was Fabinyi’s commitment to Australian culture and thought. He regularly wrote a column on book production and design in the early Australian Book Review under the pseudonym ‘Peter Pica’. This column demonstrated his knowledge of book production and his demand for excellence in design. His profession was his passion, and through his publishing and writing, his honorary work for book-trade organisations and libraries, and his advocacy for the development of children’s literature, he made a major contribution to the growing cultural nationalism that eventually led to the Australia Council and a flowering of literature, art, film and painting. His own publishing was adventurous, never neglecting the staple textbooks but taking risks to promote new people, supporting such writers as Alan Marshall, Judah Waten and Bruce Dawe. He published Robin Boyd’s controversial books on the Australian cityscape, including The Australian Ugliness (1960). By 1966 Fabinyi had shifted his publishing office to Bourke Street, where he employed bright young men like John Hooker and John Curtain to develop the lists. It was here that Fabinyi and Curtain planned a series of paperbacks which they hoped would do for Australian society something of what the Penguin Specials had done for Britain. I was asked to write on education, and Bruce McFarlane to write on economics. These two titles appeared in 1968, but unfortunately the third proposed title, on law, did not appear, no more had been commissioned, and the series lapsed. Fabinyi also wanted a more radical approach to textbooks. Hooker and Curtain commissioned Humphrey McQueen to write the text on Australian history that eventually became A New Britannia, and Curtain worked with Alec Allinson, Bill and Lorna Hannan and others on a new learning resource – English Part One – that turned secondary English teaching on its head. By the time McQueen’s book appeared from Penguin in 1970, Fabinyi had left Cheshire to become managing director of Robert Maxwell’s

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Pergamon Press Australia. In his retirement, Fabinyi became an adviser to Longman Cheshire and died in 1978. He received an OBE in 1960 and was president of the ABPA in 1965–67. He was also an enthusiastic advocate for the development of public and school libraries. NOTE ON SOURCES See also John McLaren (ed.), A Nation Apart: Essays in Honour of Andrew Fabinyi, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983.

Case-study: Frank Eyre and Oxford University Press DAVID CUNNINGHAM Frank Eyre managed the Oxford University Press Australian branch from 1951 until his retirement at the end of 1975. Before he came to Australia, Eyre had been responsible for OUP’s children’s books, then published in London. He was an editor and designer, and his wife Muriel was a book designer also. Eyre had a forceful personality, strong opinions and a willingness to help and guide others. His arrival, as an experienced publisher at the height of his powers, coincided with the beginnings of professional publishing in Australia and his influence was to extend well beyond OUP. OUP had been publishing Australian books since the early 1930s, and during World War II and in its aftermath many other titles were printed in Australian editions, but local publishing was not a priority for Eyre’s predecessor, E. E. Bartholomew. Bartholomew was primarily a salesman, and he did not build up an Australian editorial team. Eyre immediately began to change this. He found Australian editors and designers and trained them to the highest international standards. Book designer and illustrator Alison Forbes remembers Eyre coming to Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT) in 1951 when she was a student of graphic design, and showing some of the children’s books he had published in England and explaining his principles of book design. She thought he was ‘God’. Eyre regularly gave lectures on book design and the elements of printing to the graphic design students at the Technical College and also lectured at the School of Printing. He was largely responsible for the inauguration of the ABPA Book Design

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Awards, which have done so much to recognise the work of Australian designers. Eyre devoted a great deal of time to training and helpfully criticising Australian printers, in particular Halstead Press and Brown Prior Anderson. He would write the printers ‘rather long letters’ explaining why he was not happy with their work. This did not make him popular, but it did have the effect of dramatically improving Australian book production standards. Frank Eyre also trained many editors. Joyce Nicholson, in her A Life of Books: The Story of D. W. Thorpe 1921–1987, records that he ‘probably trained more editors than any other publisher’. Among those he trained and encouraged at OUP were Wendy Sutherland, subsequently chief editor at Melbourne University Press, and Elizabeth McDonald, later publishing director of Lothian. He was also one of the key people involved in the development of the AGPS Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers (first published in 1966) which remains the standard reference work for editors. Until the later years of the twentieth century the principal responsibility of an OUP branch manager was to promote and sell the books published by OUP in England. There were limitations on what a branch manager could publish locally, and he was not permitted to publish works, for example school textbooks, which might compete with books published by OUP in England. Publishing works of international scholarship was also ‘reserved for the Clarendon Press’ in Oxford. OUP did not publish fiction, except reprinted classics and children’s fiction. In spite of these constraints, Frank Eyre published many works which were successful financially and important in Australia’s cultural history, among them Alexandra Hasluck’s Portrait with Background (1955), Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend (1958), Judith Wright’s The Generations of Men (1959) and two editions of Bernard Smith’s Australian Painting (1962, 1971). Eyre was particularly interested in literature, including, naturally, Australian literature. Among the many works of literary history or criticism he commissioned were two anthologies of Australian verse from Judith Wright, A Book of Australian Verse for adult readers and New Land New Language for schools (both 1956), and James McAuley’s critical anthology

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A Map of Australian Verse (1975). The development of Eyre’s literature list was helped by Professor Grahame Johnston, who edited the series Australian Writers and Their Work which Eyre had taken over from Lansdowne Press. Grahame Johnston also edited the first Australian Oxford dictionary, and almost the first Australian dictionary from any publisher, The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, which was finally published in 1976 after years of painstaking work. Another of Eyre’s special interests was the South Pacific, where he had travelled extensively at the beginning of his time in Australia. He published many books on Pacific history and anthropology, starting with Kingsley Roth’s The Fijian Way of Life (1953). These were important books, but not especially profitable. The same cannot be said of Eyre’s educational publishing for the Pacific, in particular his Oxford English Course for Papua and New Guinea and its successor, the Pacific Series, which printed in huge numbers and made considerable profits for years after Eyre’s retirement. Frank Eyre was a major contributor to the development of Australian children’s literature. He was himself the author of Twentieth Century Children’s Books (1951) which was later republished in expanded and revised editions. He nurtured many of the most important Australian children’s writers of the 1950s and 1960s, among them Nan Chauncy, Eleanor Spence and H. F. Brinsmead. Eyre also contributed greatly to the development of the Children’s Book Council, which became a national body in 1958. He was president in 1966–68. Eyre also played a major role in the early years of the Australian Book Publishers Association. In the 1950s and until the early 1960s the ABPA had no federal organisation but operated effectively as two separate branches in Victoria and New South Wales. Eyre was the Victoria-based vice-president. The president, his friend George Ferguson of Angus & Robertson, looked after things in Sydney. Eyre himself was APBA president in 1961–62. In spite of the commercial success of some of Eyre’s publishing, and the importance of many of the books he published, throughout his time as manager OUP Australia remained overwhelmingly dependent on imported books for the bulk of its turnover and profitability. Frank Eyre’s contribution to the development of the Australian book lay not so much

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in what he published as in his insistence on the highest editorial, design and production standards, his training of editors and designers, and his work for the ABPA and the Children’s Book Council in their formative years.

Case-study: They’re a Weird Mob and Ure Smith DAVID CARTER The publishing history of They’re a Weird Mob and the manner in which this book and its fictional Italian narrator Nino Culotta shaped the life and career of John O’Grady (1907–81) are among the more extraordinary stories in the history of the book in Australia. Nino Culotta and They’re a Weird Mob bear comparison with Steele Rudd and On Our Selection. Both comedies were unashamedly pitched at a local, popular market and both drew on vernacular language. Remarkable bestsellers, these books enjoyed an afterlife that extended way beyond their initial impact, in their print, radio, theatre and cinematic offspring. Both bound their authors to a series of returns to the original scene of their success. They’re a Weird Mob, under the pseudonym of Nino Culotta, first appeared in November 1957 from Ure Smith Pty Ltd in Sydney, illustrated by ‘Wep’ (William Pidgeon). O’Grady at the time was living and working in Samoa as the government pharmacist. It was his first book, but he had already published stories and verse in the Bulletin and had written one-act plays for the Sydney Repertory Theatre. His wartime diaries and notebooks suggest an inveterate writer. In late 1955, after a series of jobs around Australia as a chemist, a commercial traveller and a builder’s labourer, he applied for the position of government pharmacist in Western Samoa (then a New Zealand protectorate). O’Grady began writing Weird Mob at a Sydney hotel, the result of a ten-pound bet with his brother Frank, the author of several historical novels. It was continued in New Zealand. Written in an exercise book, using a fountain pen, the manuscript was completed in Samoa, and O’Grady sent the typescript to his son, John Jnr, in Sydney, who offered the book to the only publisher he knew, Angus & Robertson, a logical choice given the company’s investment in popular Australiana and local fiction. Colin Roderick, who read the

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typescript first, couldn’t stop laughing. He compared it to Lennie Lower’s Here’s Luck, predicted mass sales and recommended immediate publication. But Weird Mob was rejected by A&R’s experienced senior editor, Beatrice Davis.The readers’ reports were lukewarm: there were flashes of humour and it might make a successful magazine serial but the novel’s structure did not maintain reader interest. Davis wrote to O’Grady in January 1957: ‘In spite of some very amusing incidents and a fine command of Australian slang, Nino’s story would not, in our readers’ opinion, make a successful book.’ John Jnr picked the next firm out of the telephone book without being aware that Ure Smith was not primarily a fiction publisher. He recalls that Janet Venn Brown, Ure Smith’s secretary (and formerly with A&R), ‘took the manuscript to the hairdresser and read enough of it while under the dryer to be excited by it’. Sam Ure Smith rang O’Grady Jnr ‘within a week of receiving the [novel], anxious to do business’.There was little about the manuscript that needed changing. Sam Ure Smith had joined the publishing firm established in 1939 by his father, Sydney Ure Smith, the art publisher and patron. Ure Smith Pty Ltd was a small independent firm which prior to 1957 had published mainly art and photography books, some works on the Aboriginal people, including Berndt’s The First Australians (1952), and only two novels (by Alfred Couchman and the third Mungo MacCallum), neither of which sold. When Sam Ure Smith rejoined the company after the war, he was determined to expand into general books. But the company had little experience outside quality art publishing. Sydney died in 1949 and the company was at a point of crisis when Sam decided, in 1953, to head to England to gain more experience in general publishing. He worked four days a week for Angus & Robertson in London and spent the fifth day meeting with key figures in the publishing trade. On his return to Australia in 1955 he resumed the task of reorienting Ure Smith Pty Ltd towards the general market. All that was needed was the manuscript. Ure Smith thought that Weird Mob might just be it, likely to sell a good 10 000 or so. But the suddenness and magnitude of the book’s success would change the whole nature of Ure Smith’s business. They’re a Weird Mob was an immediate bestseller. Less than a month after its release in late 1957, Ure Smith’s Melbourne representative Harry

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Hewett reported that ‘the Mob is really tearing away down here. The 100 copies hardly hit the floor’. Taking advantage of its position as a small, local firm, Ure Smith deliberately sought close relations with booksellers based on a quick turnaround in orders (and invoices). As Weird Mob continued to sell, they printed no more than 10 000 copies at a time in order to maintain bookseller demand. The first print run of 6000 hardbacks sold out in less than six weeks (at sixteen shillings the book was slightly cheaper than average for hardback fiction). Second and third impressions appeared in January 1958 and a fourth in February. By April the book had been reprinted eight times and had sold 74 000 copies. At the end of 1958 the editors of the book-trade magazine Ideas wrote, ‘We believe it has created a record for all time for sales on a new book in Australia in any one year.’ By February the following year, the book was into its sixteenth impression (averaging one a month), and by April Ure Smith was preparing to celebrate the 200 000th copy. Halstead Press provided some figures for the promotion: 200 000 copies meant 50 tons of paper, 1400 lbs of ink, and two million machine impressions. The first paperback edition appeared in 1964 and the novel was reprinted throughout the 1960s and remained in print almost continuously to 1999. It stayed near the top of the Australian bestseller lists for more than two years, outselling overseas blockbusters such as Peyton Place, Forever Amber, On the Beach and Doctor Zhivago. In July 1960, when sales had passed 250 000, Peter Coleman noted that, even though A&R had rejected the manuscript, the company had made more money out of the book than Ure Smith, as A&R had printed and distributed it and sold it in its bookshops. An English edition was published by Kaye and Ward in 1958 – complete with a three-page glossary – and a US edition by Simon & Schuster in 1961. Despite English interest in Australia at this time, with the success of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in 1957 and the Whitechapel Exhibition of 1961, sales were only moderate in the United Kingdom. In sum, Weird Mob sold more copies than any other novel published in Australia, at least until Bryce Courtenay. It was claimed to be Australia’s ‘fastest bestseller’ (although On Our Selection might challenge this claim). Weird Mob sold 300 000 copies in three years. By comparison, bestselling author Ion Idriess averaged around 30 000 sales per title, while C. J. Dennis’s The Sentimental Bloke, with which Weird Mob’s success was also

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compared, sold just 100 000 copies in its first four years. By 1970 sales were ‘over 520 000 copies’ and by the time of O’Grady’s death in 1981 the novel was in its 47th impression, with sales estimated at 940 000. The last new edition appeared in 1995 as a Lansdowne Seal Book. In a story with echoes throughout the Australian publishing industry, the success of They’re a Weird Mob both made and unmade Ure Smith as an independent publisher. It certainly determined the firm’s future. Ure Smith recorded a loss of over £2000 in 1956–57 (pre–Weird Mob) but a profit of almost £3000 the following year, with a record £62 000 turnover. But the strain on the company was extreme. Keeping up with the demand for Weird Mob in its first year, Ure Smith estimated, was equivalent to issuing fourteen new titles of 5000 copies each, when the company’s average output had been three to six books annually. The demand on accountancy and distribution meant increasing the number of staff and so higher costs. The firm was now inundated with manuscripts, each intended to be ‘as good as They’re a Weird Mob’. One was entitled ‘Come Orf It, Culotta’ and another was based on the English migrant. Only one such book was accepted, No Glamour in Gumboots by Marion Warren, described in Ure Smith publicity as ‘a woman’s Weird Mob’. The success of Weird Mob pushed the company’s list not just towards general publishing but popular fiction and Australiana in particular. The company launched the Humorbooks paperback imprint and later a series of ‘Walkabout Pocketbooks’ for travel, history and nature books such as Vincent Serventy’s Australia: A Continent in Danger. In 1960 both Alec Bolton (editor) and Paul Tracy (production manager) joined Ure Smith from the takeover-beleagured A&R. By June 1965, Sam Ure Smith was writing to advise O’Grady of the company’s impending merger with the larger independent firm of Horwitz, a publisher of mass-market fiction and magazines. Ure Smith had been looking for potential mergers ever since his return to Australia. His company retained editorial independence and control of production and sales, while accounting went to Horwitz. The mystery surrounding Nino Culotta’s true identity helped provoke interest in the book, and once the author’s identity became public knowledge O’Grady became a celebrity, perhaps Australia’s first writercelebrity since C. J. Dennis. O’Grady himself was more ambivalent about

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Nino’s success. Cop This Lot (1960), the second Nino Culotta novel, was written only after Ure Smith urged a sequel and indeed came up with the idea of having Nino take ‘the weird mob’ overseas. Ure Smith guaranteed publication if O’Grady were to undertake a trip to Italy to research the book. The manuscript was completed by May 1960, and although the readers’ reports judged it less successful than Weird Mob the sequel appeared in June of that year. Cop This Lot also sold well – 150 000 copies within a year. Over the next two decades O’Grady became Ure Smith’s most prolific author, publishing a book a year on average from 1960 to 1977. Sixteen were under his own name, although the ‘Culotta effect’ was revived for Are You Irish or Normal? (1970) by ‘Sean O’Grada’, and It’s Your Shout, Mate! narrated by ‘James McIntosh’, an Englishman reporting on Australia’s ‘alcoholic ways’. O’Grady wrote his own ‘Weird Mob’ stage play and in 1967 toured Vietnam as part of a ‘Weird Mob Show’. Weird Mob exposed a rich vein of material for Ure Smith and other publishers in popular books about Australian English and Australian customs. Cyril Pearl’s So You Want to be an Australian (1959) was co-promoted with Weird Mob (although O’Grady’s notebooks contain the draft of a long and very critical review of Pearl’s book). O’Grady himself wrote Aussie English (1965) and Aussie Etiket (1971). In early 1966 Aussie English and ‘Afferbeck Lauder’s’ Let Stalk Strine, also published by Ure Smith, were one and two on the bestseller list. The most important revival of They’re aWeird Mob was the movie version, which premiered in August 1966. The film repeated the novel’s success by breaking all box-office records for a local production. A film version had been discussed almost from the beginning, not least because in 1958 the Hollywood star Gregory Peck had paid US$10 000 for a two-year option on the screen rights, after reading the book in Melbourne during the filming of On the Beach. O’Grady wrote an unsuccessful screenplay and Peck’s independent production company did not take up its option.The film was finally made by British producer and director Michael Powell. As commentators have variously remarked, Weird Mob belongs to the same moment as the Doll, One Day of theYear, Barry Humphries, My Brother Jack and The Lucky Country. The early newspaper reviewers responded to the book’s comedy and, above all, to its representation of Aussie English.

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For Alan Nicholls in the Age,‘what will be remembered longest is [Culotta’s] reporting of Australian dialogue’; it was ‘one of the most readable and important Australian books of the year’. For the Bulletin reviewer, it was ‘the best collection of contemporary Australian colloquialism one has seen’. The issues of immigration and assimilation went largely unnoticed, perhaps because Nino’s happy trajectory into the Australian way of life was taken for granted. Leon Gellert in the Sydney Morning Herald anticipated later critics in finding the novel’s closing assimilationist exhortation ‘astonishingly shrill’. In Meanjin, A. G. Mitchell, an English-language expert, was unimpressed by O’Grady’s representation of the Australian vernacular, much of which he thought ‘phoney’ or merely conventional, and by the ‘sentimental propaganda’ of the ending. John McLaren, in the left-nationalist Overland, welcomed the book’s contemporaneity, ‘a serious endeavour to show us who we are in this industrial age, without any romantic carry-over from the days of Lawson and Paterson’. It showed the same ‘democratic humour’ that characterised the Doll and captured the ‘essentially classless atmosphere of suburbia . . . and the preoccupation of our males’ without C. J. Dennis’s sentimentality. But for McLaren the book still had a soft core, blurring the real inequalities in Australian society beneath its surface equality. The harshest early criticism was from Desmond O’Grady (no relation) in the Catholic Advocate (January 1959). As well as criticising the author’s ignorance of Italy and Italians, he anticipated later critics by focusing on the author’s ‘complacent belief that Australia is God’s own country’. They’re a Weird Mob continues to have its supporters and critics and to reappear as a reference point in Australian culture. In March 1996 the Australian weekend magazine’s ‘The Vulture’, a regular cultural-icons feature aimed at the young, hip and witty, summed up the book as ‘a faintly amusing and energetic opus, probably racist, that is a repository of outdated attitudes’. This kind of generational indifference seems more fatal than overt controversy. NOTE ON SOURCES John O’Grady Jnr and Sam Ure Smith assisted in preparing this case-study, which also draws on the John O’Grady Papers, National Library MS8046, and the Ure Smith Papers, Mitchell Library MSS 1590. See also Jacqueline Kent’s Beatrice Davis biography; Richard Nile and David Walker, ‘Marketing the Literary Imagination’, in Laurie Hergenhan

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(ed.), The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, Penguin, 1988; and Richard Nile, ‘The Mystery of the Missing Bestseller’, in Martin Lyons & John Arnold (eds), A History of the Book In Australia 1891–1945: A National Culture in a Colonised Market, St Lucia, UQP, 2001. Peter Coleman’s remarks are from ‘The Publishers’ Carve-Up’, Observer, 23 July 1960. For other contemporary commentary on the novel, see John Hetherington, Forty-Two Faces, Melbourne, Cheshire, 1962, and John Yeomans, ‘Nino Today’, Walkabout, March 1965.

CHAPTER 2

Sixties Larrikins Frank Thompson In 1960 the membership of the Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) was made up of thirty-seven publishing firms. Australia’s population was then ten and a half million English-speaking people, and most of their books came from Britain and to a lesser extent the United States. Only twenty-five of the ABPA’s member firms actually published any books in Australia, and only nine could be said to have had a national profile. Of those, three were chiefly educational publishers and two were academic presses, leaving just four – Angus & Robertson, FW Cheshire, Ure Smith and Horwitz – primarily interested in books for the general public. Compared with the others, Angus & Robertson and Horwitz were giants among pygmies, particularly since they both had substantial educational lists as well, Angus & Robertson under its own imprint and Horwitz under the Owen Martin imprint. British publishers, along with Angus & Robertson, continued to dominate general books, while Horwitz was the local leader in mass-market paperbacks.The state-oriented educational sector was developing strongly, led by Jacaranda Press in Queensland, Horwitz and A&R in New South Wales, Rigby in South Australia and Cheshire in Victoria. In the tertiary education field most books were sourced from Britain, although US college publishers McGraw-Hill, Wiley and Prentice Hall were beginning to have a significant impact, particularly among the younger academics. Still a relatively young organisation, the ABPA celebrated its twelfth

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anniversary on 26 March 1960, with Prime Minister Menzies proposing a toast ‘To Australian publishing’ at the annual general meeting. Australia’s publishers were as conservative as its politicians. There were few, if any, women at the AGM. The gentlemen discussed and debated the pressing problems of the day, which included maintenance of price controls (booksellers had to apply to the ABPA to receive trade terms), printers’ correction costs, trade discounts and copyright issues. The general tenor of the times was perhaps best expressed by A&R’s managing director George Ferguson, who stated in a 1959 letter to a London publisher: The main literary event which affects publishing in this country is the so called Moomba Festival held in Melbourne every year about March. (Moomba is an aboriginal word which is supposed to mean ‘let’s get together and have fun’.) Sounds a bit queer I know, but there it is. Melbourne has a bit of a festival at this time, and among the things they do is the holding of an exhibition of Australian books at the Town Hall. This is always very well attended, and lasts three or four days. The opening night is quite a ceremony and an award is given to the Australian book which in the opinion of the judges has made the greatest contribution to literature during the last twelve months.

But something had happened in late 1957 which was symbolic of the enormous change about to sweep through this provincial and rather parochial group of gentlemanly publishers. As David Carter has vividly described in a case-study in the previous chapter, John O’Grady’s They’re a Weird Mob was a huge success, selling 300 000 copies in its first three years of publication and quickly entering the popular imagination. Most importantly, this runaway local bestseller marked the beginning of the modern era in Australian book publishing. They’re a Weird Mob highlighted the emergent nationalism – and the recognition of what made Australians different – which would achieve its fullest expression in the 1970s. And instead of the old apologetic cringe, there was a strong pride in that difference. Suddenly people wanted Australian books with Australian themes. As a result, the decade of the 1960s became notable for the large number of popular non-fiction titles, including many bestsellers. Lloyd O’Neil’s Lansdowne Press, begun in 1960, led the way with

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titles on Australian sport, the natural beauty of the Australian landscape, and Australian painters and their works. Existing publishers with specialist interests, such as educational books, blossomed. Rigby published a ground-breaking celebration of the nation’s people and their relationship with the land with The Australians. Ure Smith continued to mine the humour vein it had discovered with They’re A Weird Mob. It published titles by Lennie Lower and Cyril Pearl and even highly amusing and irreverent books on how most Australians pronounced English at a time when ABC announcers were indistinguishable from their BBC mentors. Cheshire published a number of important titles on contemporary Australia, including Robin Boyd’s seminal The Australian Ugliness. One of Penguin Australia’s early successes was The Lucky Country: Australia in the Sixties by Donald Horne. Sun Books, begun in the mid-1960s as an Australian rival to Penguin, published one of the major history titles of the decade with Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance, as John Arnold notes in his case-study. In spite of the success of They’re a Weird Mob, most hardback fiction still carried the A&R imprint or was published by the Australian branches of British publishers such as Collins. As the decade progressed, however, creative writing began to emerge from the more adventurous publishers. Jacaranda Press in Brisbane published the confronting work of Aboriginal poet Kath Walker (later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal), as well as the poetry of Tom Shapcott, not to mention the rowdy novels of Tony Morphett (one of which had to be pulped for legal reasons). Ure Smith continued to rock the establishment by publishing hitherto banned novels by Norman Lindsay and Frank Dalby Davison, and Lansdowne embarked on an ambitious project to republish Martin Boyd’s novels. The University of Queensland Press had begun publishing Australian plays in the early 1960s and by the end of the decade was the nation’s most significant poetry publisher. At that time UQP began re-issuing the many novels and stories of Steele Rudd, and soon after commenced an innovative list of Australian and overseas fiction. Much of the publishing atmosphere of those years was characterised by a real sense of excitement. Old barriers and rigid traditions were collapsing and there was a keen sense of adventure and even camaraderie among publishers. Perhaps it was rollicking and naïve (like the Australia

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portrayed in They’re a Weird Mob), but it gave the 1960s a pioneering, devil-may-care spirit. Just ten years after O’Grady’s lively novel appeared, Cheshire published a novel which in its sophistication and brooding sense of mystery perhaps exemplified the end of that decade. Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (and the timeless film of the novel) became part of the new wave of Australian writing and artistic creativity which swept through in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Audiences were changing and becoming more sophisticated, and so was book publishing. By 1971 there were sixty-seven publishers at the annual general meeting of the ABPA. Nearly forty of these were Australianowned, twenty-one were British, six were American and two were of New Zealand origin. There was a liberal sprinkling of women in attendance, although only a handful of them were heads of publishing houses. The gentlemen had mostly been superseded by larrikins and there were vigorous discussions on issues such as the abolition of retail price maintenance, printing in Hong Kong, export sales initiatives and the restraint of trade as represented by British traditional market agreements. The annual dinner was somewhat spoiled for the few remaining gentlemanly publishers and the British delegates by the absence of the traditional loyal toast. In a larrikin moment, delegates had elected the author of this chapter to the presidency and, being an American by birth, he had completely forgotten the loyal toast.

Case-study: Jacaranda Press and Brian Clouston GREGORY BLAXELL Brian Clouston was born in 1925 in Brisbane and educated at The Southport School before joining the RAAF where he trained as a pilot. After the war he completed a commerce degree at the University of Queensland and began work at McLeod’s Bookshop which had been established by his great-uncle, Alexander McLeod, and which his late father had owned. He saw the possibility of expanding the business by publishing locally written books for Queensland secondary schools to compete with the mainly British imports then widely in use. The major educational publisher in Queensland at that time was

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William Brooks, which had decided to cut discounts to retail bookshops, including McLeod’s. Clouston is insistent that this prompted him to initiate a publishing program and he commissioned local authors to write secondary school textbooks. At that time there was a system for the selection of school texts in Queensland and Clouston made sure that the books he published became the set texts. The publishing business grew and Jacaranda Press was launched in 1954. Jacaranda eventually dominated the Queensland secondary textbook market, with science texts by Fred Barrell, geography texts by Vic Honour and English texts by Professor Andy Thomson whose anthology Living Verse was set in several Australian states. While Jacaranda’s early focus was on secondary texts, Clouston’s passion for natural history led to a new list area featuring Jacaranda Pocket Guides, based on the Observer guides. Clouston set up Jacaranda Press in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, in premises owned by H. Pole & Co., a printer who became a shareholder and for some time printed most of Jacaranda’s books. Jacaranda Press was a virtual one-man band, with Clouston as publisher, editor, designer, school rep and general manager. He recruited Lloyd O’Neil from Cassells, who called on schools and looked after the agencies, while Bill Scott, who had worked for Clouston at McLeod’s, became storeman and later Queensland sales manager. Until 1960 Clouston divided his time between Jacaranda Press and McLeod’s Bookshop. The Jacaranda Press Christmas party, to which all Queensland secondary school principals were invited, was a major marketing tool. Like many aspects of Brian Clouston’s publishing activities, the assembling of school principals from all around the state for a promotional Christmas party in Brisbane at Jacaranda’s expense was audacious as well as effective. It was typical of Clouston’s bold and imaginative attitude to publishing. In the early 1960s, Jacaranda Press and H. Pole & Co. were bought by the Melbourne printing company Wilke, which also bought the Melbourne-based bookseller and publisher FW Cheshire. Later in the decade, Wilkie, Jacaranda and Cheshire were bought by Paul Hamlyn’s UK giant, International Publishing Company (IPC). Jacaranda continued to thrive in this period, Clouston having used the sale to Wilke to fund more educational publishing. Clouston was friendly with Professor Fred Schonell, who suggested

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Clouston call on a West Australian friend, Les Johnson, who had just been appointed Director of Education in Papua New Guinea. Coincidentally, Clouston’s brother Donald was then working as a dentist in Port Moresby. Thus began Jacaranda’s long association with education in Papua New Guinea.The most outstanding achievement was the publication of the Minenda Readers, a language program written by Frank (later Professor) Johnson (no relation to Les Johnson).The material was created specifically for Papua New Guinea and took account of the realities of the system and the potential of the teachers. Minenda was probably one of the earliest Australian book publications to be printed in Hong Kong. Clouston had realised that Australia was ready for a locally written and produced reading/language program and had put together a team to write the Endeavour Language Program. The most commonly used reading material prior to Endeavour were the Happy Venture Readers, written for British schools by Fred (later Sir Fred) Schonell. Because of the size of such an undertaking, it was decided that Endeavour would be published jointly by Jacaranda Press and Cheshire.The Endeavour series was an outstanding educational and financial success, and was published for many years. Jacaranda opened a Victorian office and appointed Gwyn James, formerly of Melbourne University Press, as its first state manager. James brought editorial, design and production expertise to Jacaranda. He was soon joined by Jim Warburton who went on to become an outstanding acquisitions editor. With such talent, the Victorian branch began making a considerable contribution to the company. A New South Wales office was opened in 1963 and I was appointed manager, publishing educational titles and some important general titles. These included Gerry Stone’s War Without Honour and Max Lake’s Australian wine books. In 1966 I moved to Brisbane as managing editor of the developing Endeavour program. By the mid-1960s Jacaranda Press had vigorous educational publishing programs in Queensland,Victoria and Western Australia, with a presence in New South Wales and a dominant position in Papua New Guinea. It also had a vigorous general list, now much broader than natural history. Many books of creative writing were published, but by far the most significant were the works of Aboriginal poet Kath Walker. The staff

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included Anne O’Donovan (co-editor of the anthology Under TwentyFive) and editor Sue Wagner. While Endeavour was under construction, Brian Clouston launched into yet another ambitious project, the Jacaranda Atlas. He put together a team of talented geographers, set up a cartography department and produced a series of Australian school atlases that met the changing needs of individual state curricula. The team also produced school atlases for several overseas countries. The late 1960s were characterised by the adoption into Australia of American-generated science projects, all developed by funded curriculum centres. Clouston set up the ambitious Centre for the Development of Learning Materials (CDLM) to develop a secondary science program with books, audio-visuals, an evaluation component and teacher education materials. The program was the National Science Curriculum Materials project and it included physics, chemistry, biology and geology. Although many innovative materials were developed, the program was not financially successful and closed in 1972. By then Clouston had begun an even more ambitious project: a scholarly Australian dictionary. He discussed this with Macquarie University’s Professor Arthur Delbridge, and a team of English-language specialists was set up. After the closure of CDLM, Sue Butler worked with Delbridge and his team, and a professional lexicographer, Peter Davies, was employed to carry on development. The Jacaranda Dictionary ran into financial difficulties and was taken over by Kevin Weldon and was finally published as the Macquarie Dictionary. Jacaranda Press did, however, retain the school editions of the Macquarie. All the associated dictionaries and their subsequent development, including electronic forms, have made the Macquarie – edited by Sue Butler – Australia’s most authoritative reference dictionary (see Chapter 11). Clouston left Jacaranda Press in the mid-1970s after the devastating 1974 flood which inundated the company’s headquarters in Milton. In his years at the helm he had initiated one of the most exciting and intellectually stimulating publishing programs ever developed in Australia. He had also participated fully in the ABPA and was president in 1973–74, serving on many of its committees. He was awarded life membership of the organisation and has also been honoured for outstanding services to

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Australian publishing. An exceptional leader, he was creative, consistently innovative and infinitely resourceful. The legacy of this great Australian publishing pioneer was a company which went on to become part of Jacaranda Wiley and then John Wiley & Sons Australia.

Case-study: Lansdowne and Lloyd O’Neil JOHN CURREY Nationalism was at the heart of Lloyd O’Neil’s publishing, and he was a leading figure in the development of Australian publishing in the 1960s and 1970s. Born on 17 July 1928 in Melbourne, O’Neil was the son of a talented musician mother and a left-wing, former wool-classer father. When he was sixteen the family moved to Sydney and Lloyd began as a junior in Angus & Robertson’s famous Castlereagh Street bookshop. He spent six years there, and had become a buyer and head of the art books department before ‘going bush’ in 1952 to travel round Australia as a casual labourer. On his return he became a country representative for the British publisher Cassell, spending ten months on the road in each of the next three years. One of his Brisbane customers was Brian Clouston who managed McLeod’s Bookstore. In 1955 O’Neil made his regular call on McLeod’s to find that Clouston had started Jacaranda Press and needed a manager. O’Neil took the job, bought a 10 per cent interest in the new publishing company, and for a time was the sole full-time employee. After four years, Jacaranda was flourishing and Clouston moved across from bookselling to become managing director, so O’Neil decided to go out on his own. When his wife Janet received a small legacy, the O’Neils sold their house, and with the £4000 from the sale moved to Melbourne where, in May 1960, Lansdowne Press (named after a celebrated English squash court) was born.The imprint was launched from Purbrick’s printery in Tattersall’s Lane, where the first books were produced in a tiny room to the sound of a quad crown letterpress machine thundering on the floor above. In 1960 Australian publishers stayed afloat by acting as agents for overseas publishers, and sometimes with the help of a bookselling business. Lansdowne had none of this support. O’Neil managed to keep afloat by publishing books that interested him – and his interests coincided with

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the mood of the Australian public in the 1960s. A keen sportsman himself, he published his first book, How to Play Aussie Rules, twelve weeks after Lansdowne started. It was an instant success, and other sporting titles followed. O’Neil exploited publicity effectively, and liked to say that he gave the fastest acceptances or rejections of any publisher in Australia. In his lowcapital operation, speed was the essence of survival. When O’Neil wrote to the ABC broadcaster Russ Tyson in May 1961 suggesting a book based on Tyson’s popular radio programs, Tyson delivered a manuscript two months later, and by Christmas 1961 Philosopher’s Notebook had sold 12 000 copies. Other early successes were the anthologies of Australian folklore and humour edited by Bill Wannan, and the enormously popular sporting biographies by the journalist Harry Gordon. Nearly fifty titles were published in Lansdowne’s first three years, and of the top ten nonfiction bestsellers of Christmas 1961 three were Lansdowne titles. The O’Neil list brandished its nationalism. There were books on Phar Lap, the Holden car, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, bushwhackery and bushrangers. But within the Australian context the list was full of diversity: politics, natural history, current affairs, children’s books, history and biography. O’Neil also published pioneering studies of poverty (John Stubbs’ The Hidden People, 1966), immigration (James Jupp’s Arrivals and Departures, 1966), the national press (Henry Mayer’s The Press in Australia, 1964), advertising (R. R. Walker’s Communicators, 1967), mineral resources (Harold Raggatt’s Mountains of Ore, 1968) and Asian relations (J. F. Cairns’ Living With Asia, 1965). Although O’Neil approached publishing as a populist, he never considered ‘popular’ to be synonymous with ‘trivial’. He was aware that each generation discovers its heritage anew, and believed in books which he considered ‘good for Australia’. Among his most cherished projects were the memoirs of Norman Lindsay, the autobiography of Martin Boyd, the first Australian editions of Boyd’s Australian novels, and Australian Writers and Their Work, a series of fifteen critical essays edited by Geoffrey Dutton. O’Neil believed that his commercial ambitions could not be achieved using local printers, and from 1963 he began to move his printing offshore. The more sophisticated equipment used by printers in Asia fundamentally altered the cost structure of Australian publishing and

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made high-quality colour printing available at an affordable price in the era before colour television. Asian printing brought Lansdowne success through popular books of landscape and wildlife photography, and O’Neil believed it was the factor that enabled Australian publishing to remain viable into the 1980s. Lansdowne itself, however, was severely undercapitalised and struggled to remain afloat. In 1963 O’Neil sold the company to the Cheshire bookselling and publishing group. Although he continued in a managerial role, his relations with Cheshire’s subsequent British owners were at times strained, and in 1969 he left to go out on his own for the second time in his career. His eponymous new venture solved the problem of O’Neil’s chronic shortage of capital by keeping overheads low and dispensing with a marketing and distribution function. Like the celebrated UK ‘packager’ of the time, George Rainbird, Lloyd O’Neil Pty Ltd produced books for other distributor/publishers anxious to increase their output of Australian titles. Golden Press and Rigby Limited both had successes with O’Neil titles released under their own imprints. With financial backing from his distributors, O’Neil and his publishing partner, Sue Donovan, began to develop an educational list, which was to produce Reading Rigby, a primary-school reading scheme, and its companion, Moving into Maths. Both were later successfully adapted for the US market. At about the same time, O’Neil formed a partnership with the Edinburgh cartographic publisher George Philip and began producing Australian atlases and road maps. Meanwhile, his expertise as a mass-market publisher continued to be demonstrated, with the Australian Classics series, the Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook, Birds of Australia and the road atlas Explore Australia among the most commercially successful. Many popular non-fiction titles in the fields of natural history, painting, travel and folklore were published after 1972 by a sister company, Currey O’Neil, with his former Lansdowne editor and the author of this case-study. In 1987 Lloyd O’Neil sold his publishing interests to Penguin Books Australia and became an associate director of Penguin and an adviser on local publishing. He was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1991 in recognition of his contribution to Australian publishing and his long involvement with the ABPA, of which he was president in 1969–70.

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He died in 1992, having agreed that the industry’s new annual award for services to the Australian book industry would be named in his honour. NOTE ON SOURCES John Currey, The Australian Publishing of Lloyd O’Neil: A Celebration of Thirty Years, Friends of the National Library, 1991; interviews with Lloyd O’Neil; O’Neil family papers.

Case-study: Rigby Limited MICHAEL PAGE Rigby legend has it that in 1853 William Charles Rigby, the nineteenyear-old assistant to a London bookseller, joined his father-in-law in buying a small ship to sail to the Australian goldfields.They reached Melbourne safely but the story doesn’t say what happened to Rigby’s family or how he managed to open an Adelaide bookshop in 1859. But for fifty years he was a successful retailer of books for all ages, schoolbooks, toys and games, stationery, British magazines and occasional books published under his own imprint, such as the first history of South Australia. William Rigby retired in 1909 and died in 1913. Much of his estate went to charity, while his business became a limited company administered by trustees. Neither the trustees nor the manager they employed, John Morley Bath, knew anything about bookselling and so Rigby had a roller-coaster ride in the years between the world wars. Bath turned to various expedients to keep the business alive and sometimes published books. The successful ones included a whodunit by an Adelaide dentist and The Green and Gold Cookery Book, which Rigby’s was to reprint for many years. Bath’s daughters Mary and Hazel worked at Rigby, and in 1931 Mary became engaged to 22-year-old Vernon Branson, whom Bath then took on as his assistant. Branson, a book-lover and devotee of English literature whose university education had been cut short by the 1930s depression, was in fact ideal for the job. With Mary’s support he soon learned the Rigby business, which in the 1930s featured a circulating library run by Hazel, a photographic department and the Adelaide agency for Tasmanian paper-makers. When war broke out, a minor disability excused Branson from service, and when Bath died in 1946 Branson was virtually in charge

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of Rigby. He succeeded Bath as manager and became managing director when Rigby later went public. Rigby flourished in the postwar boom, especially in retailing British textbooks to schools growing rapidly in size and numbers. Branson saw that profits would grow even faster if Rigby published its own schoolbooks, and he persuaded Fred Cawte, a noted educator, to head an educational publishing department.The venture soon prospered. I first met Fred Cawte and Vern Branson at occasional literary events in the 1950s. Fred was a jovial, nuggety character who began his educational career in one-room country schools. Branson, once a keen amateur athlete, was a strongly made, slow-moving man whose sallow features were usually wreathed in smoke from a cavernous pipe. He said little but, puffing his pipe, seemed content to watch and listen. In 1959 we heard that Rigby was to commence publication of general books and that Ian Mudie, the South Australian poet and writer, was to be the publishing editor. Ian was well known in literary circles and he attracted some notable authors to the Rigby list, but the firm’s first postwar bestseller, The Australians, came from the American photographer Robert Goodman. His book, with text by George Johnston, was launched at just the right moment to appeal to the growing demand for books about the country and its people. Lansdowne Press also began catering to this demand. When Ian decided to return to full-time writing I succeeded him at Rigby, with the title of publishing manager. The firm was then located in an old mid-city building, with the sizeable bookshop at ground level. The wholesale department was in the basement and a variety of offices and other departments on the upper levels. The publishing department was tacked on, like an afterthought, under the roof. It was fiendishly hot in summer and probably a deathtrap in the case of fire. The firm also owned other buildings, including branches in all the mainland capitals, and there were more than 100 staff, some of whom had been employed by Rigby since the 1930s.The staff had a deep respect for Branson, whose attitude was that of a stern father: amiable so long as we were obedient, hard-working and deferential. One sensed that he and Mary still regarded Rigby as the Bath family firm. He certainly wielded great influence. While he was overseas on long-service leave, the board purchased a tract of land on which to build new headquarters, but when he returned the

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decision was instantly reversed and Rigby bought and converted the old Rosella factory instead. The cost was reflected in the fact that we never again received Christmas bonuses. Branson’s love of books was always apparent, but strangely he never made the final decision to accept or commission a new title. Such decisions were made by the publishing committee which he chaired, consisting of myself and some other members of the publishing department as well as several departmental managers. The committee members knew a great deal about books, especially their saleability or otherwise, and although we had fierce arguments the outcomes were usually worthwhile. The 1960s and much of the 1970s were prime years for Rigby. Morale was high and it was a good place to work.There was a tremendous demand for books about every aspect of Australia, and Asian printing enabled books to be sold comparatively cheaply. Rigby produced a very wide range of general books, from paperbacks to large illustrated volumes such as Every Australian Bird Illustrated and a steady flow of educational titles.The authors, editors, designers and production staff took great pride in the work. The firm actively participated in the Adelaide Festival Writers Week, which has become an important event in the Australian literary world. Things began to change with Branson’s retirement.The firm had seven managers in about ten years, including several months with no one at the helm. James Hardie Ltd, the asbestos manufacturers, took over Rigby in 1979.They disposed of the properties, sacked many of the staff and eventually removed the business to Sydney, there to be split up among other publishers. The name survived for a while as a division within the Reed empire at Port Melbourne, perhaps not far from the spot where William Charles Rigby landed in 1853.

Case-study: Sun Books JOHN ARNOLD Sun Books was founded in 1965 by Brian Stonier, Geoffrey Dutton and Max Harris as an independent paperback publishing company. The three men had been responsible for the establishment of the Australian publishing arm of Penguin Books in 1961, but left to form their own company after conflict with London over the Australian list. Capital of

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£12 000 for the new venture was provided equally by Stonier and Dutton, and Stonier obtained a bank overdraft of £10 000. Harris’s role was that of literary editor and adviser. He and Dutton, both Adelaide-based, had worked closely together on Australian Letters (1958–67) and Australian Book Review which they co-founded in 1962. Establishing a paperback company with minimal capital, no backlist and no established distribution base was a brave venture. However, Stonier and Dutton sensed that the time was ripe. The Menzies era was coming to an end, and there was a questioning of established values and a growing interest in things Australian. The baby-boom generation was beginning to flood into the expanding university sector. Opposition to conscription and Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War acted as a catalyst for the demand to change and reform society. Sun Books was both a product of and a contributing player to this 1960s reform movement, culminating in Gough Whitlam’s election in December 1972. Stonier had an accountancy background but also a very good sense of a book’s potential market. This and his general business acumen made an ideal combination with Dutton’s literary background, networks and flair. Max Harris, the third player, had a discerning eye and a long-term friendship with Dutton.They poached their production manager, George Smith, from Penguin. In October 1965 Sun Books distributed 4000 copies of a clever promotional sixteen-page dummy to all booksellers and newsagents throughout Australia and New Zealand announcing its initial program. The dummy was produced to look like an actual book, with its cover being the same as one of its titles, The Permit, Donald Horne’s novel about bureaucracy. The first seven titles, with a total print run of 115 000 copies, were published in early November 1965. Along with The Permit were Maie Casey’s An Australian Story, Ian Mudie’s book on riverboats, Judah Waten’s novel Alien Son, Big Red by Henry Lamond, Henry Handel Richardson’s novel Maurice Guest and Gary Player’s Golf Secrets. All were reissues except for the Donald Horne title. They were designed by Melbourne graphic designer Brian Sadgrove and were a standard format with the distinctive Sun cover logo. The logo was based on Aboriginal cave art discovered in north-western Australia by George Grey in 1837. Artist Lawrence Daws, a friend of Dutton’s, made sketches from Grey’s published account and

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Sadgrove used them to come up with the logo. After the first books appeared, Dutton suggested printing the logo on the spine of each title to make the shelved books easily distinguishable. Enthusiasm and good ideas do not always pay the bills and Sun Books always had a cash-flow problem. In February 1968 it was publicly announced that an interest in Sun Books had been acquired by English publishing entrepreneur Paul Hamlyn. Under the terms of the arrangement, Hamlyn acquired a 40 per cent interest in Sun Books. Kevin Weldon, then managing director of Paul Hamlyn Australia Pty Ltd and later to become a major entrepreneurial publisher in his own right, joined Stonier and Dutton as the directors of Sun Books Pty Ltd. According to a contemporary newspaper report, the arrangement was to the benefit of both parties: ‘It gives Hamlyn a paperback outlet in Australia and Sun Books the advantage of a matchless sales and distribution organisation in Britain and Europe, yet Sun Books retains editorial independence.’ However, the arrangement was not a cosy one. The independence and freedom of Sun were lost within the expanding Hamlyn Australian empire. Stonier was moved by Hamlyn to run Lansdowne and Cheshire, with Robert Mackay becoming a director of Sun. In April 1971, Macmillan Australia acquired the founders’ interest in Sun Books and also that of Paul Hamlyn. This was negotiated by Stonier and included his own move to be managing director of Macmillan Australia, a position he held until his retirement in 1998. It was the beginning of a new chapter for Sun Books. The imprint remained a separate one, although it had very close links with Macmillan, operating out of the same office in South Melbourne and with Stonier heading both companies. In the early 1980s, Sun titles began to appear as ‘Sun Books Pty Ltd, The Macmillan Company’.The imprint, later known as Sunpapermacs, effectively became the paperback imprint for non-fiction Macmillan titles. From its foundation in 1965 until it became the paperback imprint for Macmillan, Sun issued about 340 titles. Of these about 187, or just over half, were Sun originals, the rest being reprints, reissues and, after 1972, the paperbacks that accompanied Macmillan hardbacks. In the preHamlyn period (1965–67), some forty-four titles were issued, with a further eighty-two during Hamlyn’s ownership (1968–1971) and more than 200 in 1972–82. During the Hamlyn period, about fifty Sun ‘All

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Colour Paperbacks’ were also issued.These were printed in England with a joint Hamlyn/Sun imprint and were introductory texts on crafts, hobbies, trains and cars, flowers, animals and so on. But as they were written for an English audience, or the English climate in the case of the ones on flora, they were not a great success in Australia. The range of Sun titles was wide and impressive. Subjects ranged from current affairs, politics, literature and business management to sport, the environment, travel guides, economics, lifestyle and health, and food and wine. There were books on drink-driving, rape, oral contraceptives and homelessness. In the early years some original fiction was published, including Judith Wright’s collection of short stories, The Nature of Love (1966), along with reprints of classic or neglected Australian novels. After the merger with Hamlyn, the publication of original novels ceased except for a short-lived Australian Crime Fiction series. Other Sun series included the Sun Poetry Series, Colonial Poets, Sun Cookery, and Sun Academy Series. The Sun Poetry series included Michael Dransfield’s Drug Poems (1972) and several translations by Dutton and others of the poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, issued to coincide with tours by the noted Russian poet, as was a joint book of poems by beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Laurence Ferlinghetti. The most notable Sun Book original was Geoffrey Blainey’s The Tyranny of Distance, first published in 1966 and virtually in-print ever since. Other noteworthy titles included Roland Robinson’s Aboriginal Myths and Legends (1966); Roger Covell’s Australian Music (1967); The Australian Dream (1967), an anthology edited by Ian Turner; David Campbell’s anthology Modern Australian Poetry (1970); Renee Ellis and Ian Turner’s Australian Graffiti (1975); Mungo MacCallum’s Ten Years of Television (1968); two books on Australia’s changing relationship with Britain, Australia and the Monarchy and Republican Australia, both edited in 1966 by Geoffrey Dutton; Australia’s Censorship Crisis (1979), edited by Dutton and Harris; and three selections of the year’s best cartoons (1966–68), all edited by Richard Walsh. In 1968 Barry Jones edited The Penalty Is Death: Capital Punishment in the Twentieth Century, published in association with the Anti-Hanging Council of Victoria. In 1986 Sun celebrated its twenty-first birthday by introducing a new standard cover design and a new motto, ‘Unputdownably Australian’. It

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is more than just a coincidence that ‘Australia’ appeared in so many Sun titles. Sun Books was a nationalist publisher, with a tenor that was democratic and a bias decidedly Australian. A near complete collection of Sun Books published between 1965 and 1982 and assembled towards the end of his life by Geoffrey Dutton, added to by the author of this case-study and supplemented by Brian Stonier from his personal collection, is now housed in the Rare Books Collection of the Matheson Library at Monash University. NOTE ON SOURCES Geoffrey Dutton Papers, National Library MS 7285; Geoffrey Dutton, Out in the Open, St Lucia, UQP, 1996; John Arnold,‘A Bibliography of Sun Books, 1965–1982’ (unpublished), and ‘Dutton, Stonier and Arnold Collection of Sun Books’, Rare Books Collection, Matheson Library, Monash University; Susan McCulloch, ‘The Sun Story: Paperback Imprint Turns 2 1’, Australian Bookseller and Publisher, September 1986, p. 22.

Case-study: Packer Publications BRIDGET GRIFFEN-FOLEY In the 1930s (Sir) Frank Packer and E. G. Theodore had launched the Australian Women’s Weekly and the Sunday Telegraph and revived Sydney’s moribund Daily Telegraph. Their company, Consolidated Press Ltd, moved into book publishing almost by default, serialising titles and offering encyclopaedias and books about health, cooking and animals at discounted rates to subscribers. A book publishing department was established, which in 1944 secured separate offices under the management of Dr E. Harden. In late 1945 the Daily Telegraph offered £1000 and guaranteed publication for the best novel written in Australia.The contest was related to the newspaper’s interest in postwar reconstruction, with editor Brian Penton asserting that ‘Australia is entering into a new era of its culture, which only new writers can define’. In 1948 the money was awarded to Dymphna Cusack and Florence James for Come in Spinner, but the winning manuscript was never publicly announced or published by Consolidated Press. A number of reasons have been put forward to explain the debacle, including the novel’s excessive length, a feeling that the novel was

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anti-American, and concerns about its forthright treatment of female sexuality. The novel was finally published in 1951 by Heinemann and became an Australian bestseller. During the war Consolidated Press, like newspaper and magazine publishing companies in the United States, had recognised that book publishing was becoming a mass medium. In 1946 Consolidated Press acquired a controlling interest in Shakespeare Head Press Pty Ltd (SHP), which embarked on a clumsy project to publish Australian fiction. SHP found the market for Australian books too small and unprofitable, recording a net loss of £52 805 by 1948. The company began concentrating on reproducing material from abroad and then, as secondary education expanded, on school textbooks. In 1950 Consolidated Press joined with a music publisher, D. Davis and Co. Pty Ltd, to print and publish Little Golden Books in Australia and New Zealand. These low-priced children’s books, which had been launched by Simon & Schuster in the United States in 1942, relied on extensive market research and sold over four million copies each year. Consolidated Press, which had always been attuned to the mass market, took a 51 per cent interest in Golden Press Pty Ltd. A subsidiary, Colourtone Pty Ltd, acquired an offset printery to print four-colour Little Golden Books. In its first year of operations in Australia Golden Press made a gross profit of £42 658. Colourtone also obtained the Australasian franchise for Whitman & Co. of Chicago, which published children’s books for the institutional and trade markets. Packer’s group moved ambitiously into overseas publishing in 1950. A Consolidated Press subsidiary, Caprek Investments Pty Ltd, acquired the rights to publish Little Golden Books in Britain. At the suggestion of the Telegraph’s London editor, C. S. McNulty, SHP obtained a controlling interest in the ailing Frederick Muller Ltd. The firm distributed Little Golden Books throughout Britain, concentrated on cheap children’s non-fiction, launched a ‘True Books’ series for older children, accelerated the publication of craft and travel books, and produced the popular ‘Patience Strong’ series. In 1955–56 SHP earned a net profit of £55 327 and the company steadily expanded its activities, establishing offices in every Australian capital city. Packer’s two pugnacious bids to gain control of Angus &

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Robertson in 1960–61, however, failed. SHP occasionally looked beyond the profitable children’s market, releasing in 1969 Alan Reid’s The Power Struggle, about the battle to succeed Prime Minister Harold Holt. It quickly became a bestseller. SHP also published Reid’s indictment of Sir John Gorton’s troubled administration. While Packer claimed that his employee’s book was published on ‘ordinary publishing terms’, the appearance of The Gorton Experiment at a time of leadership tensions within the Liberal Party helped fuel speculation about a ‘Packer plot’ to unseat Gorton. The book publishing success of Consolidated Press Holdings almost certainly helped to inspire Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd to establish Bay Books in 1971. In early 1973 the giant Western Publishing Co. of Wisconsin, which printed Little Golden Books in the United States, made a bid for 49 per cent of Golden Press. Packer decided to accept the offer, which required the approval of the new Labor government. Consolidated Press retained majority control of its lucrative subsidiary while receiving a welcome injection of capital. Golden Press and SHP continued to complement the group’s other media interests. In the 1970s their publications included the enormously successful series of cookbooks from the Weekly’s kitchen, and Gregory’s street directories joined Packer’s stable. In the mid-1980s Golden Press, which employed about 200 people, was sold to distributor Gordon & Gotch. NOTE ON SOURCES Bookseller, 10 April 1954, pp. 1146, 1148; Consolidated Press Holdings Directors Report, 1969; Daily Telegraph, 4 October 1945, p. 1; Focus, July 1981, p. 2; Bridget Griffen-Foley, The House of Packer:The Making of a Media Empire, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1999, and Sir Frank Packer:The Young Master, Sydney, HarperCollins, 2000, and Australian Literary Studies, vol. 19, no. 4, 2000, pp. 413–24. See also Newspaper News, 7 January 1972, p. 10, 18 February 1972, p. 15, 30 March 1973, p. 21, 20 July 1973, p. 14; Review:The Independent Quality National Weekly, 20 August 1971, pp. 1274–75; Shakespeare Head Press Education Catalogues, 1960, 1966–67, 1968; John Tebbel, A History of Book Publishing in the United States, vol. 4, The Great Change, 1940–1980, New York & London, R. R. Bowker Company, 1981.

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Case-study: Horwitz ANTHONY MAY The mass-market publisher Horwitz started in 1920, but it underwent significant changes in its scope and product in the 1950s. In 1956 Stanley Horwitz took over the publishing operations, and the company remained a family concern into the twenty-first century. In the mid-1950s the company moved to Horwitz House, a Harry Seidler–designed building in Sussex Street, Sydney. Around 1958 the market for the saddle-stitched, digest-sized paperback suddenly collapsed, so Horwitz took the opportunity to move to a better quality paperback. Technology now allowed the publication of perfect bound (glued) paperbacks with a four-colour cover and letterpress printing. Horwitz dominated Australian pulp fiction, although the company was far more versatile than that label suggests, taking advantage of whatever publishing opportunities presented themselves. Because of the relatively late arrival of television, Australia was still a large consumer of Americanstyle sensational fiction. The mainstay of Horwitz’s publishing stable was Carter Brown. The Carter Brown novels, originally published under the name of Peter Carter-Brown, were written by Alan G. Yates. Yates had arrived from England in 1948 and published the first Carter Brown novel with Horwitz in 1951. In various forms the Carter Brown novels would continue until 1983. The Carter Brown novels appeared in most of the Horwitz formats, from the digest novelette to the standard paperback. In the mid-1950s Horwitz was publishing up to twenty-four Carter Brown titles a year. After the change in format occurred in 1958, six new titles were released each year. Carter Brown was by far Horwitz’s most prolific and successful author and his sales volume was boosted by an agreement for US publication. In 1967 Horwitz published a small but significant series of reprints from American publisher New American Library. The series ran for just a year and released only ten titles, but the New American Library agreement allowed for one Carter Brown title per month to get a US release. Whereas the Australian print run for a Carter Brown novel was between 70 000 and 80 000 copies, the US print run went up to 300 000 each month. With New American Library selling Carter Brown

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at a rate of 3.6 million books a year, the spectacular splash on later Carter Brown titles of ‘Over 70 million Carter Brown books sold’ seems quite plausible. Carter Brown was not Horwitz’s only author, and the majority of its fiction titles were published in various series. The open or general fiction series constituted Horwitz Pocket Books. The first series of this open category ran from 1959 to 1974 and contained the main body of Horwitz’s published fiction, overlapping with a number of single-author series. In all, Horwitz published more than 450 books in the first series of Pocket Books. In 1959 Horwitz began its Name Author series, which ran until 1966 with more than eighty titles. Among the featured writers were D’Arcy Niland, Ruth Park, Jon Cleary and James Hadley Chase. This series was a combination of original works and reprinted novels. World War II material was popular and Horwitz released a Commando/War series of nearly fifty titles between 1960 and 1969. From 1960 to 1964 the company also released a series of forty reprints from the British publisher Four Square. In the early 1960s, Horwitz published more than thirty Penguin titles in Australia. It was the Horwitz Penguin titles, beginning with John Braine’s Room at the Top, which broke from the Penguin tradition of coded titles and introduced picture covers to the Horwitz series. Another reprint series was the Stag Modern series of adult books from US publisher Monarch Books in the mid-1960s. In 1965 Horwitz released the Australian Library, which ran until 1970. These distinctive paperbacks featured gold covers, higher grade paper and a slightly larger format, with popular literary authors such as Cleary, Niland, Park, George Johnston, Charmian Clift and Frank Hardy. The final series of the 1960s was the Adults Only series, which began in 1969 and ran until 1974 under the Scripts imprint, with in excess of 150 titles. Apart from such theme-based series, Horwitz also relied on its single-author series. These would be released as Pocket Books or with their own numbering systems. The most important author after Carter Brown was Marshall Grover, who published more than 500 westerns. The first couple of hundred were published through Cleveland Books before the author moved to Horwitz in 1967. ‘Marshall Grover’ was the pseudonym of Leonard Meares and his books featured the characters Larry and Stretch. As with Carter Brown, Horwitz looked to release

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Marshall Grover in the United States, and a co-publishing agreement in 1968–69 with Bantam Books saw twenty-four titles released there. J. E. Macdonnell was another Horwitz author, from 1957 to 1989. His main product was the wartime sea novel, although he did write a short series of medical novels in the early 1960s and also spy novels. The aerial counterparts to Macdonnell’s sea novels were written by W. R. Bennett, who published with Horwitz between 1960 and 1969. Horwitz also published a number of novelists who wrote under their own names as well as pseudonymously. Pseudonyms allowed them to vary the categories of fiction within which they were working and also allowed various authors to maintain a particular series under the one pseudonym. Carl Ruhen and Richard Wilkes-Hunter were particularly prolific under a series of names. Horwitz cover art was outsourced to a number of Sydney artists and illustrators, including Col Cameron, Frank Benier, Fred Fowler, Theo Batten, John Dixon, Stan Pitt and Moira Bertram. Australian pulp fiction remained a central pillar of the Horwitz stable. By establishing a series of categories of sensational fiction and a range of versatile authors, the company was able to respond to its readers’ preferences. The titles were mostly sold through newsagents, and so Horwitz’s relationship with Gordon & Gotch, the main distributor in this area, was extremely important. Each month the returns figures provided by Gordon & Gotch enabled Horwitz to modify its future publishing in tune with the marketplace. Horwitz was also active in publishing educational and art books. Australian educational publishing had been a growth area throughout the 1950s and Horwitz was well positioned to benefit from this increased demand for educational materials, acquiring the firm of Owen Martin (later Martin Education). In 1964 the company built on its local publishing by acquiring the agency to distribute Prentice Hall’s US educational titles. It further expanded into educational materials with the purchase of the Grahame Book Company in 1968. With the rise of domestic television drama in Australia at the end of the 1960s, Horwitz began no new series of popular fiction.The effects of television on this pulp fiction market were devastating. Since the 1960s Horwitz’s main concerns have been in the magazine market and in educational publishing.

CHAPTER 3

New Wave S eventies Jim Hart If the 1960s was the infancy of modern Australian publishing, then the 1970s was surely its adolescence – a time of life that is characterised by rapid growth, increased maturity and an urge for independence, together with experimentation, recklessness, high ideals and overactive hormones. The Australian publishing industry had all of the above and more. It was a period that saw the growth and consolidation of some established imprints and the emergence of a number of new ones. At the big end of the market older Australian firms such as Angus & Robertson and Rigby competed with the local branches of overseas firms (before they were called multinationals), such as Collins and Penguin, to develop lists of general and educational titles. More significant, however, was the emergence of a swag of pace-setting independent publishers, such as Outback Press, Lonely Planet and McPhee Gribble. Along with the new names and new ideas, it was also a time for significant shifts in the infrastructure of the industry. Changes in areas such as trade practices and copyright, both here and overseas, affected how publishers did business, just as changes in technology affected how they produced their books. Much of the growth and change in publishing was a reflection of the wider social and political context. After Vietnam there was a new nationalism and a sense of independence that would continue to influence Australian life – and its publishing – well beyond the short life of the Whitlam government.

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Demographics helped the change too.The first wave of baby-boomers had already graduated from university in the early 1970s and were ready to show the old guard how it should be done. Some had gained editorial experience (there was little or no formal training then) with the few originating publishers here at that time, while others started publishing enthusiastically on their own with little more than a basic knowledge of print production acquired from student publications. The changing role of women in all aspects of Australian society was especially noticeable in publishing. When Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch came out in 1970, publishing decisions were almost invariably made by men; women were more likely to be found in nurturing editorial roles which, it was assumed, would benefit from their natural maternal instincts, neat housekeeping and attention to detail. While senior management would continue to be almost exclusively a male domain in the larger companies for at least the rest of the decade, women started to make their own decisions and their own businesses. Women’s voices also began to be heard in many areas of publishing, including such contentious debates as award rates and union representation for editors. The growth in publishing – especially in the number of new publishers – was helped by changes in book production. The use of ‘cold’ type and offset printing, which had already started to replace letterpress in the 1960s, allowed a much higher illustrative content and greater flexibility in design. The increasing overlap of editorial, design and production functions led to a more collaborative and imaginative style of publishing. Morry Schwartz refers to the significance of offset printing and strong graphics in the genesis of Outback Press. Similarly the achievements of McPhee Gribble were due in large part to the close working relationship of its partners, editor Hilary McPhee and designer Di Gribble. Production changes also shifted the economics of the industry. The affordability of colour scanning and printing in Asia facilitated the rise of the large-format photographic books that would continue to arrive by the container-load until Australia was awash with pictures of itself. The ease of duplicating printer’s film or changing a black text plate made coeditions possible, so that publishers in different countries could share the cost of origination, particularly with illustrated works, and yet still have their own edition with their own imprint and even their own language.

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At the lower end of the scale, small-format paperbacks could be photographically offset from larger hardbacks without the expense of having to be reset. The flexibility of offset production helped lower the entry cost for young publishers. As typesetting and layout became almost kitchen-table operations, it wasn’t too hard for ideas-rich but cash-poor entrepreneurs to finance a short print run. Sadly there was no new technology to change other economic realities of the book trade, such as distribution to a relatively small readership scattered across a large continent. Other changes were happening too, some of which are recalled in the case-study by Joyce Nicholson. At the start of the 1970s the publishers and booksellers gave up their ‘Statement of Terms’ which had set down rules for who could deal with whom and on what terms. Then, with the abolition of resale price maintenance in 1972, publishers could no longer set retail prices. These changes were seen by many in the industry as a threat to something called orderly marketing. ‘Books are different’ went the argument. No they aren’t, said the courts, and miraculously we all survived. In the mid-1970s a court decision in the United States had a much wider effect. With this consent decree, Australian publishers suddenly had access to rights for local editions of many US-originated books that had previously been locked into agreements with British publishers. This led to a rapid growth in co-publishing, especially as Australia then enjoyed a favourable exchange rate against the US dollar. In 1972 the Australian Bookseller and Publisher devoted a special feature to a new publishing phenomenon: paperbacks. Even though limp-bound editions had been around for decades, there was still a widespread attitude among publishers, booksellers, librarians and other sections of the book industry that ‘real’ books had to be cased and jacketed. If a paperback edition came out, it was generally some time later and under another imprint, so as not to sully the good name of the originating publisher. But in the early 1970s paperbacks were being taken seriously in their own right, especially when publishers and booksellers alike finally saw that there were significant profits to be made. The change blurred the lines between publishers. Traditional hardback publishers discovered ‘vertical integration’ – that it was better to publish under your own paperback imprint than to license away the profits to your rival, especially at a time

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when takeovers and mergers put many imprints under the one roof. Conversely, traditional paperback publishers such as Penguin increasingly originated their own titles rather than wait patiently to take over someone else’s, and in some cases reversed the pattern with their own hardback imprint. Penguin, for example, published the hardback edition of Anne Summers’ bestseller Damned Whores and God’s Police under its Allen Lane imprint some years after the original paperback. As paperbacks came of age they also got bigger.The 1970s saw the arrival of the B-format – or trade-size – paperback, close to the traditional demyoctavo. This not only gave some books more credibility (which hopefully justified a higher price) but it also meant that increasingly wordy books could be accommodated within a manageable page extent. As a further economy, hardback and paperback editions could sometimes be bound up from the one print run, allowing simultaneous publication. In a climate of growing national identity, independence became increasingly important to Australian publishers. In the early 1970s the industry was still heavily dominated by imports from the major British imprints, notwithstanding the existence of a few well-established locals, notably A&R and Rigby. A regular feature in the Australian Bookseller and Publisher at that time was ‘News from London’, which presumably kept the colonials abreast of developments ‘back home’. Although the branch offices were set up primarily to import and sell the parent company’s books, most of them had by the 1970s at least begun a local publishing program which they now expanded. Collins for one was actively building its local list at this time, especially in children’s books and in fiction. Penguin had already started a separate list of Australian Penguins which for a few years were identifiable by a colophon incorporating two boomerangs.Whether that piece of kitsch was a badge of national pride or a warning that these were not ‘real’ Penguins, the distinction was dropped in the early 1970s. With a combination of strong local publishing backed up by the parent companies’ lists, a relatively small number of major overseas-owned companies dominated both the industry and the Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) at this time. By the mid-1970s a growing number of independent publishers wanted a voice that the ABPA could not provide, even if these independents could afford the annual subscription.

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Many could not. And so was born in 1975 the Australian Independent Publishers Association (AIPA). Although most of the founding members were small publishers, they gained strength and credibility when Richard Walsh led the venerable firm of A&R, then still a major publisher, away from the ABPA to fly the rebel flag. The formation of the AIPA may be seen as both an evolutionary step for the new wave of Australian publishing and a sign of the nationalistic mood of the times. In 1976 the two organisations collaborated on a joint export effort, and in 1979 the AIPA was vocal (but unsuccessful) in opposing the foreign takeover of Rigby, then Australia’s oldest locally owned publisher. However, in the long term the industry was too small to support two trade organisations, especially as many of the AIPA’s key people were overstretched just running their own businesses. Like some of its members, the AIPA barely made it into the 1980s, but its spirited 1970s activism was a symbol of that vital and stimulating decade of Australian publishing.

Case-study:The New A&R RICHARD WALSH By the time I became involved with Angus & Robertson, in mid-1972, the famous Old Firm was more of a beached whale. Still recognisable as a former leviathan, it was in fact close to death. In 1970, after withstanding a decade of guerrilla attacks from the likes of Walter Burns and Frank Packer, the descendants of George Robertson had finally allowed control of their company to fall into the hands of strangers – led by the charismatic businessman Gordon Barton. In A Certain Style Jacqueline Kent conveys the dismay of the legendary editor, Beatrice Davis, at this unexpected turn of events and the advent of what Davis termed ‘Bartonry and Walshism’. Beatrice and her senior colleagues affected not to understand why this indignity had befallen them, but in 1973 they in fact helped prepare for publication Gordon McCarthy’s The Great Big Australian Takeover Book, which spelt out in plain language that by the late 1960s A&R’s publishing division was haemorrhaging money. At this time A&R was being challenged at every gate of its fortified city by new and vigorous competitors. Lloyd O’Neil and Rigby were

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by then the principal purveyors of traditional Australiana; A. H. & A. W. Reed were pre-eminent in natural science; UQP, Cassell and others were giving voice to the new generation of poets and fictionalists; and the education market was dominated by foreigners and had been energised in the 1960s by the growth of Jacaranda Press. A&R was simply fighting on too many fronts. It was still a captive of the Australian printing industry, attempting to match the quality and price other publishers were achieving in Hong Kong by maintaining its own poorly equipped, fully owned printery, Halstead Press. At a time when other publishers were priding themselves on their ability to give authors a quick response to submitted manuscripts, A&R still had in place a cumbersome system which required at least two detailed editorial reports on each manuscript. It felt somewhat aggrieved that authors no longer automatically made the company their first port of call. The design of A&R books was pedestrian; their distribution and marketing lethargic. Gordon Barton, rightly or wrongly, felt that only radical change had any chance of restoring A&R to its former glory. Because The Review (which became Nation Review in 1972) had been a striking succes d’estime under my direction, he assumed that I might be able to perform some similar kind of miracle at A&R. In fact, my little experience with books up to then had mainly related to Frank Moorhouse. When Gareth Powell and I founded the monthly women’s magazine POL, we published a few books, including Frank’s first collection of short stories, Futility & Other Animals. At the Review we had typeset his second collection, The Americans, Baby, because no respectable typesetter would touch it for fear of prosecution for obscenity. When I arrived at A&R, Beatrice Davis was still smarting from the presence of Moorhouse inside her citadel and there was worse to come. My predecessor, Gordon McCarthy, had in 1972 launched the Angus & Robertson Writer’s Fellowship as an innovative way of encouraging new authors to our ranks, and the very first winner had been Kerryn Higgs, on the basis of a brief but promising extract. By the time I arrived, it was clearer to the editorial staff than it had been to the original judges that what Kerryn intended was for A&R to publish Australia’s first significant lesbian novel. Beatrice was outraged and did not wish us to proceed with this book, which was ultimately published as All That False Instruction by

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‘Elisabeth Riley’. Nor was she happy that the first book I brought into the house was my old friend Dennis Altman’s Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation. Tensions among the top executives at A&R at this time were of Shakespearean proportions. Beatrice barely accepted that she was responsible to John Abernethy, who had been installed as director of the general books division at the time of the takeover. John had a major territorial battle with Bruce Semler, then head of the educational books division, who insisted on developing a significant list of books, which seemed to be indistinguishable from general books, aimed at the affluent library supply trade. John Ferguson ran the British operation and originated his own list of books; his Australian colleagues accused him of not promoting their books hard enough in the United Kingdom and he in turn felt that his books did not get much of a go in Australia. The poet John Tranter was creating essentially an educational list in Singapore for South-East Asia and suffered a smaller version of John Ferguson’s travails. All these people were significantly talented, but the problem was that a vast amount of money was being lost and there was no sense of teamwork. Part of the problem was that the company had been so impoverished for so long that there was no proper pension fund in place. Ancient retainers remained at their posts because their puny entitlements did not allow them to retire at the customary age. Bert Iliffe, who ran royalties, was into his eighties. During the era of the quill pen he had devised an inscrutable system that no one else could decipher. Older staff members felt inordinately challenged by the pace of technological change – the new-fangled accounting machines, the telex, the photocopier, web offset printing – let alone by the dramatic changes in the political and social landscape that were about to engulf us. Very quickly it became obvious to me that we could excel in educational publishing or in general publishing, but not in both. Each of these disciplines required dedicated but totally different marketing, sales and editorial strategies. The mystique of A&R had been created by its illustrious, almost 100-year-old general publishing tradition; henceforth we would concentrate on that. The educational backlist and work in progress were virtually auctioned off, but unfortunately were not judged

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by our competitors to have great commercial value, which only confirmed to me the wisdom of the decision. The successful tenderer was the US giant McGraw-Hill. We closed Halstead Press so that henceforth we could negotiate with third parties to meet our printing needs. The brilliant idea that the best way to market our backlist was to gather related titles together into a number of seductively designed uniform series was hardly revolutionary, but A&R had simply not been doing this before the takeover. Gordon McCarthy launched the first books in the Young Australia Series – inexpensive, full-colour versions of our children’s classics – and we published more and more titles in this format. We launched the Australian Natural Science Library as one way of regaining the initiative in this area of traditional A&R pre-eminence (beginning with hardy perennials like Cayley’s What Bird Is That? and Dakin’s Australian Seashores but later adding newly published titles like Roland Breckwoldt’s acclaimed Wildlife in the Home Paddock). Other series included Famous Australian Lives (the best of our own biographies plus licensed titles like Fin Crisp’s Chifley), the A&R Modern Comedies and the Commonsense Cookbook series. Previously the Old Firm had been happy enough to license to Lloyd O’Neil many of its most valuable properties, which he reissued as his Australian Classics in hardback, with their distinctive Heidelberg School wrap-around artwork covers. To Lloyd’s immense disappointment, we declined to license any more titles to him and slowly reverted all existing Australian Classics contracts. Taking a leaf out of his book, we began to license additional titles from other publishers and produced our own Australian Classics list, preferring the robust profits from publishing to the modest royalty cheques we had received up to then from sub-licences. Similarly, A&R had traditionally licensed its most successful hardback titles to Penguin and Pan, and had had little significant presence in the paperback market. Carl Harrison-Ford launched the A&R Classics list and we ultimately used this as a platform to reissue in paperback the cream of our backlist, to which we added many titles licensed from other publishers, putting back into print books from Christina Stead, Elizabeth Harrower, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Kylie Tennant which had never previously been published by A&R. The young cartoonist Patrick Cook came on board to help launch our

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new mass-market paperback imprint, Arkon. This became an outlet for commercial bestsellers, like Harold Lewis’s Crow on a Barbed Wire Fence and Bill Nagle’s The Odd Angry Shot. More controversially, we pioneered the novelisation of Australian films and television series. The top-rating Number 96 soapie spawned about half a dozen titles, while the films we ultimately novelised included Peter Weir’s The Last Wave and Gallipoli. We initiated a children’s paperback imprint, Bear Backs. I wish I could record that the revitalisation of Angus & Robertson’s publishing program and its reversion to commercial rude health was greeted with universal acclaim, but nothing could be further from the truth. George Robertson’s grandson, George Ferguson, who had honourably guided the company’s fortunes for more than three decades, was a popular and patrician figure in the great world of books. The thirtysomething hyperactive wunderkind who had succeeded him had neither gravitas nor political conservatism to commend him, and appeared to have undergone a tact bypass. Every change, every innovation at the new A&R was greeted with howls of disbelief and rage. We had been innovative in being among the first publishers to offer books on sale or return; at a time of mounting criticism of British publishers for their mark-ups we were noteworthy for our realistic pricing policy. We had back-up stock available in every state. In time, my dismay at the constant hostility from my publishing competitors and my disappointment at what I perceived as the sluggishness of the foreigndominated ABPA caused A&R to resign from the ABPA and throw in its lot with the new generation of local publishers who created the Australian Independent Publishers Association in 1975. By this time we were having to compete with one of the most innovative of these upstarts, Outback Press, in acquiring American titles, but we enjoyed enormous success with books like Beverly and Vidal Sassoon’s A Year of Health and Beauty and the Dr Atkins Super Energy Diet, which we marketed aggressively and turned into huge bestsellers. In later years my friends (and fiercest competitors) Hilary McPhee, Di Gribble and Brian Johns often chided me for not concentrating all my energy on developing the kind of intellectually kosher lists they generated at this time. But Brian wasn’t running Penguin; he was free to concentrate all his not inconsiderable energy into developing a wonderful Australian

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list that sat, like a maraschino cherry, atop the Penguin bread-and-butter imports that created something like 80 per cent of his company’s turnover. Hilary and Di’s commercial ambitions were modest and sadly their vision ultimately failed, partly because of the need to rely on others for distribution. At A&R I was both managing director and publisher. I had inherited a very large operation with a significant workforce (even after the initial cutbacks); it was never an option, in my view, for A&R to convert itself into a boutique publisher. I wanted to maintain our excellence in fiction and poetry and quality non-fiction, but this could be achieved only as part of an aggressively commercial publishing house. We were the only publishers trying to do in Australia what the great publishing houses of London had always done: to publish across a broad spectrum of genres, preferably throughout the so-called British Commonwealth. In my view we needed to be big enough to distribute our own books so that we might carry our destiny in our own hands. In August 1973 I had appointed Rodney Hall and David Malouf as our new poetry advisors. Through their efforts, and those of Les Murray, we had by the end of the 1970s reclaimed our position as a leading poetry publisher. We had maintained our output of fiction, both literary and commercial. Frank Moorhouse continued to publish with us and we introduced younger writers like Louis Nowra and Morris Lurie to our list. We published, in both Britain and Australia, Christina Stead’s last novel (The Little Hotel ) and Colleen McCullough’s first novel (Tim). From Henry Mayer’s Labor to Power to Paul Kelly’s The Unmaking of Gough we had made a significant contribution to the political debate that raged. When Barbara Ker Wilson went to Hodder in 1973, David Harris took up the challenge as publisher of our books for younger readers. While our established writers continued to win major awards – Ruth Park for Callie’s Castle in 1975 and Ivan Southall for Fly West in 1976 – David, and later Jenny Rowe, helped nurture a new generation of talent. Children’s writers like Simon French, Libby Gleeson and Jenny’s own alter ego, ‘Emily Rodda’, became new stars in our firmament. At long last we began to regularly win awards and commendations for the innovative designs of both our adult books and our children’s books.

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This decade was a turbulent period of dramatic structural change in the book industry. Beyond our company there was a great changing of the publishing guard at this time and many influential figures moved from company to company in a somewhat bewildering fashion. However, after the initial ructions the new A&R team developed a very strong camaraderie and stuck together, enjoying their working environment and ultimately dispersing only at the end of the 1980s, after many chose to join me when I was recruited to head Australian Consolidated Press. In 1980 Angus & Robertson rejoined the ABPA and was acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd. At the time of my move to ACP, in 1986, I was the ABPA’s president. By then A&R was a highly profitable company and by far the most prolific publisher of Australian books.

Case-study: Inner-urban and Outback MORRY SCHWARTZ Outback Press was founded in Melbourne in 1973 with a gusto difficult to imagine today. That year was a significant moment in Australia, with conservatism swept aside by the Whitlam victory and by the radical wave of the baby-boom generation. In the university suburb of Carlton – the self-proclaimed centre of the Australian counterculture – the excitement was palpable. Writers, poets and playwrights filled the cafes and pubs. New plays were performed at La Mama and the Pram Factory, but for the writers there were no equivalent outlets. It was a low tide for local, independent Australian publishing. This vacuum inspired four young Carlton men, all in their mid-twenties, to drop what they were doing and start a publishing company. They were Alfred Milgrom, a postgraduate science student and co-editor of Circus student magazine; Colin Talbot, a freelance journalist and novelist-to-be; Mark Gillespie, architect, musician, writer and co-editor of Circus; and myself, architecture dropout and hopeful entrepreneur. Our role models were the small presses of the United States, particularly California, which had become the voice of the American counterculture.We had no money, almost no business know-how and absolutely no book-trade connections or experience. Initially we weren’t even aware that a Literature Board had been established as part of the Australia Council.We made it up as we went

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along. After much debate we settled on Outback Press as the company name, which is just as well; the alternatives included the ‘Outback Front’, ‘Outback Pressed’ and even ‘Outback Proust’. Offices were set up at Rae Street, North Fitzroy, in a barn of a place, previously a junk shop for used plumbing fitments. Three of us actually moved into this dump and somehow, in between incessant debate, chess play-offs and live rock practice, some publishing actually happened. In an interview for Stuart Sayers’ Writers & Readers column in the Melbourne Age, Talbot outlined our philosophy and publishing direction: Outback Press sees itself in the new tradition of small presses, aiming for a young, thinking market. The books we plan to publish will rely heavily on fiction, on poetry, on large format graphic and photographic works, sociojournalistic studies, that higher consciousness stuff, but not ecology. We will be relying on offset printing, eye-grabbing graphics and unconventional typography. The new journalism is one of our strong things.

We published our first four titles simultaneously in mid-1974: Crying in the Garden, a novel by Suzanne Holly Jones; Applestealers, an anthology of contemporary Australian poetry (which fortunately didn’t end up with its proposed title, Thongs & Poems); and two large-format photo-journalistic books: A Book about Australian Women, edited byVirginia Fraser with photographs by Carol Jerrems, and Into the Hollow Mountains, a book about the suburb of Fitzroy, edited by Mark Gillespie with photographs by Robert Ashton. Looking at these books today, I think we were living up to Talbot’s boast to Sayers. We put a lot of effort and energy into every aspect of each title. We could afford to; we had no staff to pay and we lived on next to nothing. The books were distributed by Collins Forlib and the printers were paid mainly with Literature Board subsidies.We typeset inhouse and also took advantage of a Literature Board typesetting subsidy. We laid the books out in marathon all-night sessions using a waxer, the smell of which I still clearly recall. We really went to town with this tiny initial list. Neil Curtis, the exceptionally creative illustrator and copywriter, had become an honorary Outbacker (that is, unpaid). He created the typewriter/cigarette logo and led a larrikin promotional assault the likes of which the book trade

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had not seen before or since. One of his press releases appealed to the public ‘not to storm bookshops demanding these books, rather to walk in quietly and respectfully discuss the purchase with the bookseller’. He created ‘The Outback Press Roll Your Own and Blow Your Nose Kit’ for booksellers. A description of the kit’s function would use up too many words, but certainly it caught the booksellers’ attention. We pasted the town with Neil’s posters, blitzed the press and drove in-store staff crazy. But the wackiness of our promotions didn’t get in the way of the seriousness with which we approached our publishing. In 1975 we continued with a dozen titles, including the National Book Council prize-winning novel A Collapsible Man by Laurie Clancy and the novels Massive Road Trauma by Colin Talbot, The Rooms by Kris Hemensley and Nabothial by Hamish Cook. We also issued poetry by Kate Jennings, Garrie Hutchinson, Michael Dugan and Jenny Brown, and a collection of stories titled The Outback Reader.The standout success of the year was a massive collection of poetry by women, Mother I’m Rooted, edited by Kate Jennings. And then there was the one that got away. The then unknown and unpublished Peter Carey submitted a novel called ‘Adventures Aboard the Marie Celeste’, which we accepted with a contract and $100 advance. Unfortunately, he had second thoughts, not believing the novel was good enough. He had already written three unpublished novels in ten years. We tried to convince him, without success. This novel, along with the three others, has never been published. In 1976 we published poetry by Robert Harris and Antigone Kefala, plays by Jack Hibberd and Steve Spears, the novel The Institution by Walter Adamson, The Political Dicemen by Peter Blazey and Andrew Campbell, and the successful Wit of Whitlam by Dean Wells. Despite the subsidies and reasonable sales, by the end of 1976 money was tighter than it had ever been, and we had to get more commercial or fold. Mark and Colin decided to leave and their departure marked the end of Outback’s first, most literary and spirited incarnation. Fred and I were dreaming up new survival plans. I spent 1977 in New York buying Australasian rights to commercial titles. Margaret Gee, a young Age journalist, joined us and soon became a superstar publicist. With a brilliant author tour campaign, we sold over 100 000 copies of Irene Kassorla’s sexual self-help paperback Putting It All Together, bought

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in New York for a $500 advance. We continued to originate Australian fiction, non-fiction and poetry, but as we stopped applying for subsidies, which we had come to view as insidious government control of content, our finances constantly got tighter. This was despite huge successes like The Pritikin Diet (50 000 in hardcover) and Jim Fixx’s Complete Book of Running (60 000 in hardcover) and the many titles published under Outback’s paperback imprint, Circus Books. Fred spent 1978 in London, where he had set up Melbourne House, and we drifted apart. This was a great pity as he was a born publisher, who to a large degree drove the Outback project. Outback lost him to the expanding cyberworld, where he became an international pioneer of computer games. The last straw for Outback was its high-profile legal battle with Graham Yallop, Australia’s then Test captain, over his ghost-written Lambs to the Slaughter. After asserting that he hadn’t written a word of it, the court allowed us to publish the book in its entirety. This was a Pyrrhic victory given that we had to pay our substantial costs and we printed far too many copies in the belief that the huge publicity would translate into bestsellerdom. It didn’t. The last Outback book was published in early 1980. Postscript: Outback Press begat Schwartz Publishing (and its paperback imprint, Unicorn Books) which, among its many books, published Blanche d’Alpuget’s biography of Bob Hawke. Schwartz Publishing begat Schwartz Bantam for one very successful year, followed by Schwartz and Wilkinson, and, a few years later, Bookman Press. Now, after thirty years, I am still going, with a young, dedicated and energetic team who run Black Inc. and my favourite project ever: Quarterly Essay.

Case-study: Currency Press KATHARINE BRISBANE Currency Press, one of the oldest surviving independent Australian publishers, is a unique institution: a publishing house that subsists principally on the work of Australia’s playwrights, performers and composers in a market almost entirely local. That the company exists at all is a tribute to Australian nationalism. That it is almost alone in surviving even thirty years is evidence of the obstacles that beset the industry and the stubbornness required to overcome them. Currency’s survival can be put down

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to three things: good timing, finding a niche, and building a team that believes in cultural worth. Currency Press came into being at the right time. In 1971 public emotions were high, fuelled by a tired conservative government, opposition to the Vietnam War and the rise of the civil rights movement. In that spirit Australia began to examine afresh its origins, character, language, accent and way of life. A burst of young writers eager for self-expression became activists in this movement. Their work, like the student revolution itself, was iconoclastic, bombastic and attention-seeking. They began to gather in student refectories, pubs and venues like La Mama in Melbourne to read and debate their work. Out of this ferment came public demand for a freeing of outdated censorship laws, the establishment of our first comprehensive government funding body for the arts, the rebirth of the film industry, anti-uranium mining protests, land rights for Aboriginal people, the rise of the environmental movement, and the setting up of state-funded theatre companies. By 1971 the Australian playwright had a voice, a stage and a public for the first time since the days of the old purveyors of melodrama. Currency Press was launched in response to all these demands. My husband Dr Philip Parsons was a drama academic at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and I was the Australian’s national theatre critic. Events moved faster than we anticipated. One of the first writers to call on us was David Williamson, with three manuscripts: The Coming of Stork, The Removalists and Don’s Party. The Removalists, after opening at La Mama (a tiny Melbourne experimental venue), was taken up in Sydney by the infant Nimrod Street Theatre (now the Stables), and then transferred to Harry M. Miller’s Playbox. This was the first play by the new generation to be bought by a commercial producer. In 1973 it went on to the Royal Court Theatre in London where it won for Williamson the Evening Standard award for the most promising playwright of the year. Currency Press published The Removalists in 1972 and it was an immediate success. It even became prescribed reading for the Victorian Police. After many years it is still one of our bestsellers and sales have passed 150 000. (Our top seller remains Williamson’s The Club.) The Removalists shocked audiences into recognising – even celebrating – some of the uglier aspects of urban Australia, until then unfamiliar to the stage.

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Don’s Party, which captured Australia’s changing politics, followed it into national venues in 1973. Since then Williamson has had an unbroken record of popularity both on stage and on film. In 2005, at sixty-three and the author of more than thirty published plays, he announced his retirement from playwriting. So greatly has his work contributed to the successful growth of our theatre companies that his influence has come to be known as ‘the Williamson economy’. Currency Press, of course, has been one of his beneficiaries. We retained his favour: the virtue of being a niche monopoly. ‘The new Williamson’ could be assured of paying its way and profiting the backlist. Since the secondary Australian drama syllabuses were set up in the late 1970s (in response to the growing library we were providing), at least one Williamson could be relied on to find a place somewhere in every school in Australia. The Press began life in a back room of our Sydney terrace house. We had little capital and no publishing experience and started by offering six plays a year on a subscription basis. To save money, our first books were typed on a proportional typewriter and pasted by hand onto sheets of cardboard for offset printing. Harry Williamson, now the eminent banknote designer, was one of the team. The flaw in this system was that the only way to correct was by pasting over – and the minute hump created by two layers of paper was converted by the camera into bold type. After eighteen months we were saved from this, and looming disaster caused by a 40 per cent jump in printing costs, by Gerry Wallis-Smith, head of Associated Book Publishers (ABP), a British conglomerate that had bought out his New Zealand family firm, Hicks Smith & Sons. Among ABP’s imprints was Methuen, the oldest and greatest drama publisher, to which all our authors aspired. Together we created Currency Methuen Drama (CMD) and learnt the basic skills of book production and distribution. It was a heady time, with an output aimed at producing enough titles to build a course in Australian drama. We had success as early as 1974 with Alex Buzo’s Macquarie. CMD reproduced 20 000 of our funny pasted-up volumes in Hong Kong at 13 cents each. Some of them lay about for years. But the dream ended suddenly and acrimoniously in 1976 during a restructuring of the larger firm, when Gerry Wallis-Smith was hastened

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into retirement and our bank foreclosed on the overdraft.We went public and managed to embarrass ABP into paying off the overdraft and returning the stock, on condition that we hand over the company name. ABP, we later discovered, had determined to change its name to Methuen Australia and we owned the rights to the name. So, with our longstanding associate Jean Cooney, we set out to rebuild the company. We had no resources, having been supporting the company thus far from outside income, but now we had more experience. Cambridge University Press in Australia became Currency’s distributor in 1977 and remained so until 2001 when a transfer was made to UniReps, an arm of the University of New South Wales Press. Today we keep some 350 plays in print, together with reference texts, cultural history, audition manuals, music scores and a growing film list. Currency exports books to courses in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, and through a network of other small publishers sales of publishing and translation rights are increasing. The early plays of the New Wave were noted for their colourful vernacular. Actors who spoke such language had already been charged with using obscene language in a public place. This had caused some heartburn to the well-loved Nancy McConnan, Cambridge University Press’s educational sales rep, who refused to handle The Removalists. She was prevailed upon by the doughty Harris brothers, Cambridge’s executives and the heirs of Georgian House that in 1945 had fought through the courts for their edition of Robert Close’s novel Love Me Sailor. By the mid-1960s this horseplay had settled into a steady flood of more substantial work which saw Williamson and his peers enter the major theatres. In Sydney the opening of the Opera House allowed Dorothy Hewett, Louis Nowra and Stephen Sewell to create large-cast, sweeping texts and brought about the return to the stage of Patrick White. The 1980s also saw the rapid rise of politically minded Indigenous theatre, led by the writer/performers Jack Davis and Bob Maza, and an exponential growth through the 1990s of articulate Aboriginal performers emerging from drama training schools. From the 1980s women writers asserted their place, with the work of Joanna Murray-Smith, Hannie Rayson, Jill Shearer and Katherine Thomson, together with a resurgence of non

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Anglo-Celtic authors: the children of Jewish and European immigrants, reinterpreting Australia as a multicultural society. Currency Press documented all these trends in single volumes, collections and anthologies, and constantly sought new ways to expand. One of the most lasting, made possible by advances in setting technologies, has been our Current Theatre Series, which we began in 1983 with Patrick White’s Netherwood. This is a rapid publishing method whereby we include the complete text of a new play in a theatre program. Production is completed in little over a month and the scripts are often, of necessity, works in progress. But the up-front costs are paid on delivery and the author has a published book. The series is chiefly known in Melbourne, where we printed the Playbox Theatre’s programs for nearly twenty years. It ceased in 2004 when Playbox’s all-Australian repertoire was abandoned and the company became the Malthouse Theatre. One piece of serendipity occurred in 1977 when Ray Lawler, absent in Ireland for many years, returned with Kid Stakes, the first part of what became The Doll Trilogy. When I approached him about publication, he said, dubiously, ‘I suppose so, but you would have to take Summer of the Seventeenth Doll too.’ The play, it appeared, was languishing in a cheap Fontana paperback and no one remembered there ever being a contract. In the event, we secured the rights and since then Australia’s most famous play has been through many editions, and sales are pushing 200 000. Another attempt at diversification in the late 1980s was our music list, under the editorship of Richard Vella. I had thought that all-Australian teaching scores would be as welcome as the drama texts. But this time the timing was not right. When, in 1999, a devastating hailstorm demolished our third distributor with a good part of our (uninsured) stock, we finally admitted failure. Why do people want to read a play? A surprising number of people take their theatre-going seriously. But our main market, inevitably, is student reading at secondary and tertiary level, supported by reference texts and manuals. In the pressure of the classroom they have the advantage of being shorter than a novel, give opportunity for classroom reading and often deal with some social issue that can be examined through the medium of drama. Among our popular titles are Louis Nowra’s Cosi, set in a mental institution;Williamson’s Brilliant Lies, about sexual harassment;

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Jane Harrison’s Stolen, about institutionalised Aboriginal children; Nick Enright’s Blackrock, about the rape and killing of a teenager; Mary Morris’s adaptation of Two Weeks with the Queen, about a young boy coming to terms with death; Michael Gow’s Away, which draws parallels with A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Hannie Rayson’s family drama Hotel Sorrento; and John Misto’s The Shoehorn Sonata, about two survivors of a women’s prisoner-of-war camp. Some of these were initially published in the Current Theatre Series. With the steady introduction of visual and aural media we have also capitalised on screenplays, providing a text which records both the author’s original intention (in the shooting script) and the text of what we see on screen. These again are rapid productions. A value judgment is made on the quality of the author’s script, then another at preview of the finished work. If the answer is ‘yes’ on both counts, there is a scramble to sign a contract and bring the finished work out in time for cinema release. A new opportunity has now arrived with DVD. In 1998 Currency began to assemble selected plays from the past into its Modern Drama series of anthologies. Seven volumes of plays from the 1950s and 1970s have so far been published, aimed at reminding us of a substantial national repertoire. Other thematic anthologies include Aboriginal, feminist and gay and lesbian plays. Currency also has a large list of critical studies and manuals, including three histories of opera, feminist analyses of popular culture, critical studies of Australian film, and skills manuals. The major works so far have been the comprehensive encyclopaedias, Companion to Theatre in Australia, edited by Philip Parsons and Victoria Chance (1995), and Companion to Music and Dance in Australia, edited by John Whiteoak and Aline Scott-Maxwell (2003). Both books, despite substantial subsidy, were an unconscionable burden on a small company but we remain proud of the achievement. Music and Dance was finally published by Currency House, a non-profit associate. For ten years Currency was run from our house at 87 Jersey Road, Woollahra, where Jean Cooney and Ian Murdoch dodged children, dogs and the vagaries of renovations which on one occasion brought the ceiling down on the office. Unrenovated premises have been a large part of the history of the Press. In 1982, after a brief period of extension to a

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near-derelict house at 89 Jersey Road, a legacy enabled the purchase of a three-storey former draper’s premises at 330 Oxford Street in nearby Paddington. Jean left us in 1984 to return to university; Ian, our manager, resigned in 1989 when the pressure on him to master the computer reached crisis. But we have had very few changes of staff in thirty years and numbers have never exceeded six. Steadily the computer has brought more work back in-house, and yet we still produce between twenty and twenty-five books a year, excluding the Currency Theatre Series. In 1998 the company moved to larger, but again unrenovated, premises at 201 Cleveland Street, Redfern. This consisted of a grand Victorian mansion, built, as I learnt, by Daniel O’Connor, Postmaster General in the 1880s, and named Tara. We located the office, temporarily, in the coach house at the gate (which, lest it sound too demeaning, was equipped as offices) and at last moved in to a real home just in time for our thirtieth birthday party in 2001. At that party I announced my retirement. Today two longstanding members head the company:Victoria Chance (publisher), who joined in 1989 to assist Philip with the Companion to Theatre, and Deborah Franco (marketing/sales director), recruited in 1984 to uncover the mysteries of our first computer. To them, I left the burden of rejecting all those scripts we judged we could not sell, and the struggle to find a market for those manuscripts we could not resist. They are supported by two special young talents, Claire Grady (senior editor) and Kate Florance (designer). For all their skills I have the greatest admiration. Retiring was difficult. Philip retired from the university in 1986 but our plans for a different life were cut short by surgery for cancer. He died in 1993. His death was followed too quickly – in 1995 – by that of Sandra Gorman, whom we had appointed managing director in 1991. Sandra had a fierce determination to carry the company forward and her death was a severe blow to all of us. My son Nicholas is now the chair. He is a filmmaker and supervises the screenplays. He and my artist daughter Harriet grew up proofreading the work of our playwrights and they are not ready to let their legacy go. In 2001, in response to concerns about the status of the arts in public life, we incorporated a non-profit association called Currency House to be a resource centre in Redfern. Currency House undertakes some non-profit

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publishing which we have financed by an old-fashioned method of seeking subscriptions, and we have done this very successfully. It is a direction that in the present climate scholarly publishing must of necessity follow. In 2004 we also launched Platform Papers, polemical quarterly essays with the aim of encouraging new ways of thinking about the performing arts. Which, of course, is why we started Currency Press in the first place.

Case-study: UQP FRANK THOMPSON The protests against the Vietnam War were reaching their peak in 1970, a turbulent year for Australian universities. Students were finding a new, more creative voice which was not always well received in the hitherto sleepy groves of academe. The University of Queensland had, perhaps, awakened a bit sooner than most with the appointment of a relatively young and dynamic vice-chancellor, Zelman Cowan, and it had the added zest of confronting a deeply conservative state government committed to censorship and the elimination of dissent. It was also my tenth year at the University of Queensland Press. It had taken those ten years to build a base firm enough to withstand the veiled threats to close the Press down every time we failed to meet our budget or published something that offended the entrenched and elderly hierarchy. So, I began the decade with four clear objectives: to free up the decision-making process, which in turn would allow us to broaden our list, expand sales and cut production costs. Universities are proud of their collegiate ethos and most operations are run by committees. I had come to the conclusion that if publishing decisions were taken by non-publishing people in committees we were not going to survive in a rapidly changing market. Most university presses were originally founded to publish scholarly works, but by 1970 there were two problems with this. First, Queensland academics were tending to take their manuscripts elsewhere, out of fear that local publication might be seen as publication of last resort. More worrying, the market for scholarly books was rapidly declining. I had always believed that taxpayer-funded universities owed something to a wider community than merely the scholarly one. I could see

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no reason why university presses should not publish books of general cultural interest. In order to do this successfully, however, we would have to become more entrepreneurial, and that meant freeing up decision making, because securing the best manuscripts is a highly competitive activity. We accomplished this by replacing the publications committee with a board of directors which formulated policy, approved budgets, analysed financial reports and examined our publishing activities to ensure they conformed to policy. Everyday publishing decisions, including which titles we published, were my responsibility. Although we had first published poetry in 1968, the banner year for our poetry publishing was 1970 when we published the original Paperback Poets titles. Selling at a dollar and featuring three of the best young Australian poets – Rodney Hall, David Malouf and Michael Dransfield – they captured the imagination of the student generation and sold like hot cakes. Poetry remained an important element in our publishing plans throughout the 1970s. Following the success of Paperback Poets we turned to Paperback Prose in 1972 with Rodney Hall’s novel The Ship on the Coin and Michael Wilding’s short story collection Aspects of the Dying Process.We also began our critically acclaimed Asian and Pacific Writing series, with fiction and poetry by leading regional writers. As I had hoped, the act of publishing fiction at a time when fiction publishing in Australia was at a low ebb attracted not only a great deal of interest among the reading public but attention from authors as well. And eventually the decade saw us publishing major first fiction works by David Malouf, Peter Carey and Roger McDonald, among others. We backed up this push into fiction with the Portable Australian Authors series of teaching texts edited by Laurie Hergenhan. In the nonfiction field we expanded our biography list, as well as publishing in most academic and general cultural areas, including education, art, sociology, sport, history, politics, economics, geography, natural history and the environment, and literary studies. By the end of the decade we were publishing between fifty and sixty new titles a year, and I was reasonably happy that the mix of our titles between fiction, poetry, academic works and topics of general cultural interest was about right, was sustainable and was aimed at the educated general reader.

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In the 1960s our marketing had largely been done by Ure Smith, but, after that company’s takeover by Horwitz towards the end of the decade, we were having problems because our list was not very compatible with the Horwitz mass-market paperback product. The solution was to build our own sales force, although we obviously could not afford a large one calling on every retail shop. By the middle of the decade it was becoming clear that we would have difficulty retaining our increasingly popular authors unless we could demonstrate an ability to market their books overseas.We spent the last half of the decade building up a foreign marketing operation, which combined overseas agents and publishers for rights sales with commission representatives where rights sales were not feasible. It had the added advantage that it put us in a good bargaining position to bid for the Australian market rights to selected overseas-originated titles. It also did much, of course, to enhance the international reputation of the university. The small size of the Australian market inhibited sales, and modest print runs meant higher unit costs. Another way of tackling high unit costs was to find savings in production costs. In the late 1960s Lloyd O’Neil at Lansdowne and Brian Clouston at Jacaranda were using Hong King printers in an effort to keep their costs down. We were not far behind, producing our first Hong Kong–printed book in 1967. Although the government brought in a bounty payment for Australian printers to enable them to compete, the amounts were never enough, and by 1970 many of our titles were being printed in either Hong Kong or Singapore. This was an important element in keeping our essentially low-print-run books competitively priced. Salary overheads, however, began to climb rapidly in the 1970s. The university also began charging us for services that we had formerly received for free. Costs had to be controlled or we would have to lift our prices dramatically. In the mid-1970s we began outsourcing much of the work we had always done in-house. As our list expanded, we used more freelance copy editors and designers. This freed our existing creative editors to spend more time developing manuscripts and book concepts. By the end of the decade the University of Queensland Press had grown into one of Australia’s major publishing houses.The building bustled with activity. Authors and artists were always on the stairs, in the hall,

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or barging out of an editor’s office.We had a sense of making history and were proud we were doing it in Queensland. NOTE ON SOURCES Craig Munro (ed.), UQP:The Writer’s Press 1948–1998, St Lucia, UQP, 1998; J. A. Nelson, ‘University of Queensland Press/Bookshop Financial Reporting’, UQP Archive, Fryer Library, UQ, 1974. See also Frank Thompson: ‘An Address to Playlab’, Brisbane, 12 February 1978; ‘Bookselling and Publishing’, Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 11, April 1976, pp. 26–31 and vol. 52, no. 12, May 1976, pp. 18–25; ‘In Search of an Australian Identity’, National Times, 30 January–5 February 1983; ‘Star Wars or Publishing Australian Creative Writing in the Seventies’, an address to the English Association, Brisbane, May 1978; ‘The University of Queensland Press: Past, Present, and Future’, 16 March 1973, UQP Archive.

Case-study: Fremantle Arts Centre Press RON BLABER The Fremantle Arts Centre Press was established in 1976 and incorporated as an autonomous unit within the Fremantle Arts Centre. Established as community centre and largely supported by the Fremantle City Council, the Arts Centre initially provided infrastructure and personnel support for the Press. Several people, including the Press’s founding director, Ian Templeman (1976–89), served on the boards of both organisations. In Western Australia it was felt that there was limited publishing access for local writers, with markets also concentrated in the eastern states. Fremantle Arts Centre Press became a publishing outlet for contemporary West Australian writing and also performed a powerful mentoring function for new writers, marked by a high level of editorial support. Originally positioned as a non-commercial regional enterprise, the Press has maintained its core commitment to all forms of writing, including poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Over time the publishing activities of the Press gradually diversified. Eventually, it began operating as an independent entity but received support through the West Australian Literature Board (later part of Arts Western Australia). In 1976 two anthologies were published, Soundings (poetry) and New Country (short fiction), and two single-author titles, Elizabeth Jolley’s Five Acre Virgin and Nicholas Hasluck’s Anchor and Other Poems. Distribution

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was critical to the development of the Press’s reputation.Western Australia provided good support, but in the eastern states the Press was limited to independent booksellers such as Gleebooks and Readings. However, in the mid-1980s Penguin Books took on distribution. This was important in capitalising on the critical and popular reception of two particular titles, Albert Facey’s A Fortunate Life (1981) and Sally Morgan’s My Place (1987). The latter has sold more than half a million copies in Australia and has been translated into fourteen languages. Fremantle Arts Centre Press’s success in the 1980s was underpinned by interest in Australian literature within the secondary and tertiary education sectors. Titles such as A Fortunate Life and My Place became set texts in high schools and universities around Australia. A recent shift from set texts to recommended texts has made this market less predictable. The Press, however, has developed a children’s/teenage literature list and continues to have success in placing titles into schools, notably Tim Winton’s The Deep (1998) (published under the Sandcastle imprint), Warren Flynn’s Gaz series and Wendy Jenkins’ series on Australian Rules. Under the influence of Ray Coffey as managing editor and publisher, the Press has continued to publish on Indigenous issues. Although not part of the original charter, the Press has nevertheless developed a significant Indigenous list. Morgan’s My Place stands out, but it is important to note Paddy Roe’s Gularabulu (1983) and Stephen Muecke, Paddy Roe and Krim Benterrak’s breakthrough work Reading the Country (1984). More recently the Press has enjoyed success with Kim Scott’s Benang (1999), the joint winner of the 2000 Miles Franklin Award. Steve Mickler’s The Myth of Privilege (1999), Anna Haebich’s Broken Circles (2000), and Anne Brewster, Angeline O’Neill and Rosemary van den Berg’s Those Who Remain Will Always Remember (2000) have become significant contributions to the list. The commitment to the Press of Ian Templeman, Ray Coffey, Wendy Jenkins and Clive Newman has been a significant factor in its continuing contribution to Australian literary and cultural life. The Press has been a model for the development of other regional presses.Writers such as Elizabeth Jolley, Dorothy Hewett, Sally Morgan, John Kinsella, Phil Salom and Kim Scott, among others, have contributed to the reputation of Fremantle Arts Centre Press and ensured that it remains a quality

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independent imprint not only in Western Australia but also nationally and internationally.

Case-study: DW Thorpe and the Book Trade JOYCE THORPE NICHOLSON My father, Daniel Wrixon Thorpe, started the book and stationery trade journal The Australian Stationery and Fancy Goods Journal in June 1921. In November that year a book section was added and later it became known as The Booksellers, Stationers and Fancy Goods Journal. In the following years its name changed many times, and it was best known for many years simply as Ideas. It was divided into two in 1956, one for booksellers and publishers and one for newsagents and stationers. In the 1970s I became managing director of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd and later owner of the company. I was born two years before Dan (as he was usually known) began the journal, and from the age of twelve I regularly went into the office, by then at 191 Queen Street, Melbourne. At fifteen, in 1935, I left school to work as a junior and later as secretary to Dad. I also started a university arts course at night. In 1945, after the war, I left full-time work at Thorpe’s to become a full-time mother, and had four children. During the following years I continued writing articles and still often went into the office to ‘help out’. As the business became more and more profitable, Dan decided to work less and appointed a young man as managing director. For many years this was a success, but then inefficiencies and mismanagement gradually set in. Profits fell and in 1968 Dan asked me to become managing director. I made many changes to the business and saw just as many changes in the book world. The main change in the journal was that Dan had mostly written ‘how-to’ articles on selling, on training staff, ideas for display, and so on. In the 1970s we changed the editorial to include as much information as possible – about new books, authors, promotions, trends, events, conferences and seminars, and company news. The first big change at Thorpe’s in 1970 was the inclusion of a subject entry in the growing Australian Books in Print so that every Australian book was listed by author, title and subject matter. We also changed the names of the journals to The Australian Bookseller and Publisher and The

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Australian Newsagent and Stationer. I never did like the name Ideas, as the uninitiated always thought it was a woman’s magazine. The 1970s also saw many changes in the book trade.The most important was the introduction of the Trade Practices Act 1971, which made resale price maintenance illegal unless exemption was gained. It was the absolute belief of most in the book trade (including me) that resale price maintenance was essential. Publishers and booksellers combined to apply for exemption from the act, and were dismayed at how strenuously the Trade Practices Commissioner opposed it.The costly case dragged on for many months and finally, on 30 May 1972, we gathered at the back of the Sydney court to hear the Honourable Richard Eggleston reject the book trade’s application for exemption. Later in 1972 a National Book Trade Seminar was held, attended by 150 booksellers from all states, to discuss how to combat the loss of resale price maintenance. Subjects included selling, pricing, costing, stock turn, stocktaking, distribution, promotion and marketing. The increased professionalism appeared in other ways. Publishers produced an increasing number of dumpbins for booksellers to display their books. There were more book launches, more sophisticated marketing, and the promotion of film tie-ins. In 1971 we began another successful publication, The Weekly Book Newsletter, or the ‘blue news’ as it became known throughout the industry. In that year we celebrated our fiftieth anniversary with special issues in gold covers, and the following year saw the first appearance of the amusing Bookseller’s Diary, suggested and written by Philip Robinson. In 1972 I went to the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time. In 1973 the book trade faced two copyright problems. One was the increase in closed markets. The Australian agents of overseas publishers began to insist that Australian booksellers obtain their books only through them. This meant that booksellers were unable to buy direct from the overseas publishers and thus get better discounts. Although both booksellers and publishers work for the good of books, there has always been considerable conflict between them, about such things as speed of supply, discounts, prices, packing and so on. But I have never known such bitter feelings as those caused by the closed market debate. Some booksellers started ‘buying around’, illegally importing books direct from overseas,

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and more or less selling them under the counter. The public who knew about this could buy their books more quickly and cheaply. Publishers maintained that if they could be sure of the whole Australian market they could promote titles better and increase sales for booksellers. The other copyright problem was the extent of photocopying from books by individuals, schools and universities with a subsequent loss to authors and publishers. This was solved by the establishment of the Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL), which instituted a collection system. The Whitlam government brought about many other benefits for book people, such as the new Literature Board, increased spending on education and, in 1975, in one of their last pieces of legislation, the Public Lending Right, a great bonus for authors. The National Book Council had been formed in 1973. The balance of the 1970s saw the trade adapting to the drastic changes of the early years of the decade. There were more conferences and seminars, with both the publishers association and the booksellers association appointing full-time directors.The controversial British Traditional Market Agreement, which had divided the English-speaking world between American and British publishers, finally came to an end. American publishers brought an anti-trust case against British publishers supporting the agreement, which forced the British publishers to abandon it. In 1976 the editors, surely the most underpaid workers in the book industry, filed a log of claims through the Australian Journalists’ Association, which resulted in better conditions. In 1979 the Industries Assistance Commission brought down its Report on the Publishing Industry, which was mostly negative for the trade. The trade also had to fight a proposed 2 per cent import duty on books, and in this they were successful. For me, 1976 was a sad year, as my father died, aged 87. In 1977 a transfer of shares meant that I became the owner of the company, and increasing profits enabled me to gradually increase staff, to work less hard and to spend more time travelling in a more leisurely manner. NOTE ON SOURCES This case-study is taken from A Life of Books: The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd, by Daniel Wrixon Thorpe and J oyce Thorpe Nicholson, Melbourne, Courtyard Press, 2000.

CHAPTER 4

Into the Global Era Michael Webster In 2001, as part of my teaching in the Graduate Program in Publishing Studies at RMIT, I provided students with a snapshot of the publishing industry as I saw it at the end of the twentieth century. Compiling it wasn’t as easy as I’d thought it would be, because at the time the trade – as it was still quaintly referred to – was poorly served by ‘real’ data. There were the biennial Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures on publisher activity, and the APA (Australian Publishers Association, which had changed from being the Australian Book Publishers Association in 1995) compiled a list of its members’ bestsellers after all returns had been processed. Other than these retrospective reports, a couple of readership surveys done for the Australia Council and some copyright-related research from Copyright Agency Limited (CAL), the available information was largely anecdotal.This all changed in the early 2000s, as some of the $240 million GST compensation package was used to research the industry, and BookTrack (renamed Nielsen BookScan in 2002) entered the Australian market. I was particularly struck by the proliferation of publishers during the 1990s, with more than 9500 publishers and publisher/distributors registered with Thorpe’s Australian Books in Print by the end of the decade.The vast majority of these, of course, produced fewer than five books each year, although, in theory at least, nearly all were available for commercial sale.Then, as now, members of the APA accounted for over 80 per cent of

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total book sales. Nevertheless, the ‘explosion’ in output towards the end of the century, particular in self- and ‘vanity’ publishing was an indication of the lower cost of entry that computer technology was then offering. Although producing a new book had become easier and the quality of writing was improving with the proliferation of professional writing courses around the country, by the end of the decade distributing and selling new books was even harder than it had been. Retailers limited the number of publishers they were willing to see, simply because, with more than 100 000 new English-language books being published a year, space was increasingly at a premium, even in superstores. Getting published was also becoming more difficult, as many of the larger publishers were starting to close their lists to unsolicited manuscripts, ensuring that the role of literary agents was increasingly important, not only as managers of writers and their works but also as first-line filters of manuscripts for publishers. Over 60 per cent of all book sales in 2000 originated locally, with half of all front-list (new book) sales being Australian titles, a vast improvement on the figures for fifty years earlier. In addition, for publishers and authors the revenue from PLR (Public Lending Right) and CAL was increasingly important. PLR, which was distributing over $5 million a year by 1999, was especially significant for low-volume titles, with up to a quarter of author income being generated from the scheme. CAL’s annual payments were also well above the most optimistic predictions made when the company made its first distribution of $1.4 million in 1984. In 1999 CAL distributed $21.4 million to copyright owners, an amount that was to double again within five years. Even though publishers’ domestic sales income had been growing at over 13 per cent a year through the decade, from a modest $509.2 million in 1989–90 to $1207.8 million in 1999–2000, the number of sales per title was dropping, indicating that publishers were generating their sales with an increasingly wide range of titles, in many cases at the expense of profitability. On a brighter front, exports were performing very well – especially educational material to North America – with total overseas sales exceeding $150 million in 1999, almost double the 1994 figure. At last, by century’s end, books were finally going in the other direction after two centuries of absorbing a large slice of Britain’s excess book production.

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‘General’ books (including fiction and non-fiction) now represented just over 60 per cent of publishers’ sales. While demand for hardbacks declined as prices increased, large-format trade paperbacks, relatively unknown a decade earlier, had successfully captured over 30 per cent of general book sales, and the traditional distinction between the educational and general markets was being blurred, with general books increasingly used for study purposes as the concept of ‘lifelong learning’ became a part of Australian life. At the big end of the book business, fewer than twenty-five publishers operating in Australia at century’s end had a turnover of more than $15 million, with just two exceeding $100 million. For all its sophistication and hype, publishing was still a cottage industry. When local ownership was taken into account, the internationally successful Lonely Planet and the dynamic Allen & Unwin were the only significant local members of the over $15 million club, along with directories publisher Universal. While opportunities for mergers between large multinationals had declined, the purchase of smaller Australian companies by overseas groups was an ever-present part of entrepreneurial book publishing. The most prolific publishers of Australian material had stayed fairly constant over the 1990s, including Penguin, Allen & Unwin, HarperCollins, Oxford University Press, Random/Transworld, Pan Macmillan, Pearson Education and Hodder Headline, though in most cases they imported many more books than they originated here. With the exception of some educational lists, it was rare even for the largest publishers to produce more than 300 Australian new titles (including new editions) each year. As these big players tended to produce fewer but ‘bigger’ titles (it was, after all, the start of the ‘celebrity author’ era), first print runs grew during the decade. By the end of the 1990s, only 20 per cent of first printings were in the 2000–3000 copy range, with 50 per cent at 4000–5000 and 30 per cent higher than that. For children’s titles, almost two-thirds of new titles exceeded 6000 copies, most in full colour and printed overseas. The first true indication of market share by publisher had to wait until BookTrack released its first full-year figures in 2001. It showed that Penguin held 18 per cent of the Australian retail market, followed by Random House (14 per cent), HarperCollins (13 per cent), Allen & Unwin (9 per cent), Pan Macmillan (7 per cent), Hodder Headline (6 per cent) and

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Simon & Schuster (2.3 per cent). All other publishers held less than 2 per cent market share each, although in some niche areas particular publishers (such as Lonely Planet) dominated. Allowing for the impact that major titles had on publisher performance in the following years, in 2004 the order of publishers by market share had not changed. (BookTrack/BookScan data does not include newsagencies or textbooks but now catches most local Internet book sales.) According to the ABS, there were 9755 new Australian titles published in 1999–2000, 3759 of them general titles, with 49 per cent non-fiction, 34 per cent fiction and 17 per cent children’s titles. While 44 per cent of new Australian titles were mass-market paperbacks, hardbacks were only 18 per cent, with the balance made up by the increasingly popular trade paperback. In the education sector, more than 3000 new locally written and published primary titles and 1000 secondary titles were published in the same period, as Australian-produced educational material all but replaced imports. In spite of all the activity, book publishing remained a relatively unprofitable enterprise for most firms, particularly those monitored by the ABS. Its 2000–2001 survey of 228 businesses whose major activity was book publishing (excluding the majority of smaller publishers mentioned earlier) showed that, although publishers generated income of $1.36 billion, their expenses totalled a whopping $1.32 billion, giving a very slender pre-tax operating profit. The twenty largest publishers generated no less than 76 per cent of this turnover, with a 6 per cent profit margin. ‘For other book publishers,’ concluded the ABS, ‘income and expenses were approximately equal, so there was no profit margin.’ Profits were also significantly down on the previous year (1999–2000). Total book sales (Australian and imported), however, had risen steadily since 1994, though the actual number of books sold peaked in 1995–96 (130 million), compared with its lowest level (104 million) in 2000–2001. At the end of the twentieth century, publishers were employing around 5000 people, with 64 per cent of permanent staff being female. In the latter years of the century two employment patterns were emerging.The growth of casual and part-time employment (20 per cent of all employees fitted this category by June 2000, a figure that was to increase to 25 per cent three years later) was as discernible as the shift to subcontracting,

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especially in editing and design. Formal postgraduate university training programs, first introduced in the late 1980s at RMIT in Melbourne and Macquarie University in Sydney, were also expanding to other states and replacing the in-house cadetships that were standard in earlier decades. Wages and printing were the largest cost items for publishers.The ABS identified a total of 128 general publishers and 100 educational houses, the former generating sales of $763 million and the latter $487 million. It is interesting to note that, given the frequently voiced predictions about the death of the paper-based book, a mere $10 million worth of electronic books were sold in 2000–2001, including audio books. The tradition that publishers of a reasonable size should distribute their own titles from their own warehouses was being challenged by the end of the century. Rather than being a core activity that offered competitive advantage, as had been widely believed, the duplication and obvious inefficiencies that flowed from multiple warehouses all around the country was leading the trade to accept the wisdom of third-party distribution centres (often owned by publishers but operating at arm’s length). The initiative by Allen & Unwin and Hodder Headline in 1999 to jointly create Alliance Distribution to handle their own and other publishers’ books accelerated this trend, so that by the early 2000s longestablished publishers were closing their own warehouses and contracting out distribution. The industry is now serviced by a few massive, hightech distribution centres situated in transport hubs and offering a menu of services.

Case-study: 2001 Publishing Report Card CRAIG MUNRO In 2001 the publishing and printing industries produced a landmark report on Book Production in Australia: A Joint Industry Study (JIS), funded by the Commonwealth. (For a brief summary of the JIS findings on the printing industry, see Chapter 7.) The publishing component, coordinated by respected consultant and former publisher Bill Mackarell, was arguably the most thorough analysis of the book publishing industry ever undertaken. The JIS surveyed a total of twenty-six publishers, including the major trade houses such as Penguin, Random and HarperCollins as

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well as the big educational firms including Pearson, Reed, Nelson and Wiley, although small publishers – and Australian-owned houses (often one and the same) – were under-represented. Unusually, the JIS focused on the exemplary performances of six major publishers – three trade (Penguin, Allen & Unwin and Hodder Headline) and three educational (John Wiley, Reed Education and Nelson Thomson) – in order to establish industry benchmarks. As these are not publicly listed companies, the JIS ‘report card’ provides rare and invaluable material for the book historian and it shows how much the Australian industry has grown in just a few decades. It also underlines the fact that the fledgling postwar publishing industry (led by A&R and the likes of Ure Smith and Cheshire) was once almost exclusively Australian owned and controlled. Multinational conglomerates such as Penguin and Random now dominate this market, with quality imported and Australian titles. And yet the publisher regarded by the JIS as the most successful – Lonely Planet – is both locally owned and a major player in travel books worldwide, although its Australian turnover is relatively modest.The JIS reported on only one national house of real significance: the high-flying Allen & Unwin, a former British company with lucrative agencies (including the phenomenally profitable Harry Potter novels). For a detailed profile of Allen & Unwin Australia, see Louise Poland’s case-study. The JIS report on Allen & Unwin highlighted the fact that the company’s Australian publishing accounted for 43 per cent of total sales to the end of June 2000. With sales, including agency titles, of $40 million, Allen & Unwin’s operating margin exceeded 5 per cent of sales. The report identified two ‘distinct features’ of this ‘highly competitive’ operation: the senior management being shareholders, and managing director Patrick Gallagher’s ‘publishing background’. The JIS compared this with the ‘sales and financial background found in the chief executives of other publishing companies’. There were seven full-time acquisitions editors, each with annual gross profit targets of a minimum of $300 000 and upwards, and new titles were only approved if they met the required levels of profitability. The JIS report concluded that this exemplary Australian company displayed a ‘strong product driven culture’, positive team-work and successful, high-profile agency lists.With its joint distribution facility

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with Hodder Headline, Allen & Unwin remains the model of a sustainable trade publishing house. During the 1990s, however, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed, trade publishers struggled for profitability. Most surveyed in the JIS were getting by on operating margins of just 3 per cent of sales. Write-offs of unsold stock were a key problem, along with exposure to foreign exchange volatility. Returns (from booksellers) were consistently 15–20 per cent, and most publishers carried too much stock and were waiting three months or more for payment on sales. The study showed up another, more fundamental problem. ‘It was very disappointing,’ the JIS reported, ‘to see an extremely low level of expenditure on training and development.’ Given the importance of publishing staff, the 2001 training levels were ‘totally inadequate’. Of those trade publishers surveyed with sales of less than $10 million, all posted losses that year, along with a couple of the smaller schools publishers. Their larger costs relative to sales made for a precarious publishing equation. The JIS warned that ‘Unless they operate in a distinct niche, smaller publishers must face acute problems’, and recommended that a separate study of the problems facing this sector should be undertaken. Educational publishers, especially the bigger ones, were generally more profitable than their trade counterparts. Schools and tertiary publishers, for example, had operating margins five times higher than those of many trade houses. During the 1990s, takeovers reached a peak internationally, with the resulting small number of powerful conglomerates dominating book publishing throughout the English-speaking world. Trade publishing is now very much the domain of three players: Penguin, Random House (now owned by the German media giant Bertelsmann) and HarperCollins (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation). In educational publishing, Pearson Education merged Prentice Hall with Addison Wesley Longman to form another huge conglomerate. The JIS looked in some detail at the Australian operations of one of these big players, Penguin, possessor of book publishing’s most identifiable logo. Penguin’s local sales in 2000 were ‘in excess of $100 million’, with a staff of more than 300, most now working from the company’s new inner-Melbourne headquarters or at the separate state-of-the-art distribution facility. In the later 1990s Penguin had recorded 10 per cent

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sales growth each year and a solid operating margin, although conditions in 2001 were more difficult. As at December 2000, nearly 43 per cent of turnover was generated from its Australian titles. Penguin’s publishing focus has been on books for both adults and children, enabling it to extract the maximum from its front-list and back-list titles, whether in paperback or hardback. The JIS analysis of Penguin’s performance also highlighted the fact that most of its senior management had been with the company for some years, giving this trade publisher a ‘clear competitive advantage’. Outsourcing was not seen as a priority: Unlike most publishers, Penguin makes minimal use of freelancers in its publishing operation and employs a large team of editors, designers and production people. The company believes this is the most effective way of ensuring an efficient and effective publishing output.

Penguin spent $100 000 on staff training (apart from internal training) in 2000. Its five publishers (as well as publishing director Robert Sessions whose case-study follows) commission more than 200 books a year, and the company aims to sell out a first print run in twelve weeks, though only a third of its titles had actually achieved this. Half of any remaining stock is written off within six months of publication. Penguin now distributes for many other publishers, including Australian, US and UK imprints. In its analysis of the six highlighted companies (Penguin, Allen & Unwin, Hodder Headline, John Wiley, Nelson Thomson and Reed Education), the JIS was generally positive about their management approaches. Where the three trade publishers used incentives to build teamwork, the educational firms were more committed to performance bonuses ‘to drive results’. Both Penguin and Wiley set goals ‘related to cash flow targets’. All six companies had ‘innovative publishers who are also very much aware of market needs and pressures’, with strong partnerships in place between publishers and sales and marketing. At the conclusion of its 2001 report card, the JIS made a number of recommendations, including better stock management, with more effective control of returns. The importance of training was also emphasised, with the proposed benchmark set at a minimum of 1 per cent of sales (meaning, in the case of Penguin, for example, an increase in training expenditure from the reported $100 000 to more than $1 million). As

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well as calling for more energetic export initiatives (because Australian companies lacked an ‘export culture’), the JIS made a spirited recommendation for the further development of local publishing lists: ‘While Australian publishing requires significant investment and carries a higher degree of risk, it should produce higher margins with reduced exposure to foreign exchange problems and a better profit contribution than that given by imported lists.’ With imports still accounting for more than half of all non-educational sales, there is plenty of scope for the further development of original Australian publishing. NOTE ON SOURCES Printing Industries Association of Australia and the Australian Publishers Association, Book Production in Australia:A Joint Industry Study 2001, with assistance from the Commonwealth’s GST-sourced Industry Growth Fund. See also Geoffrey Dutton, A Rare Bird: Penguin Books in Australia 1946–96, Ringwood, Penguin, 1996.

Case-study:Thirty Years On ROBERT SESSIONS In some ways little has changed. Our book market is still small compared with the United Kingdom and the United States, but large when compared with New Zealand, South Africa or Ireland. Australians are still enthusiastic book buyers, and support a wide range of retail booksellers. But in very relevant ways publishing has changed a great deal. We are all more businesslike these days, because we have to be. I suspect that all of us are better at reading a profit and loss statement than we were in the 1970s, and many of us can even fumble our way around a balance sheet. We have better tools and better information, but all the spreadsheets in the world won’t help predict the next bestseller (or the next flop). I am also aware of how much more competitive we are than we used to be.This is partly because of the rise and rise of the literary agent, and partly because of the pressure on people like me and James Fraser and Shona Martyn and Jane Palfreyman to satisfy a corporate demand: to produce more and better and bigger and more often; and generally feed the ever-hungry machine that is an amalgam of our owners’ needs, our colleagues in the industry and their expectations, and of course our customers.This wonderful

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but infernal machine (which underpins us and is the background against which all our creative endeavour is made possible) is sometimes referred to in depressingly non-human terms as ‘the supply chain’, but I still think of it as being a lot more glamorous and intricate than that. One of the things that has changed is the increasingly competitive bidding for authors, which often involves ‘the publisher’s pitch’. Once upon a time we had a nice lunch with an author, offered him or her a modest advance and a sensible royalty, then we all got on with it. Contracts were exchanged, but rarely did we have to engage specialist lawyers to argue out the finer points. Now we are as sophisticated as our British and American counterparts in the quality, range and ferocity of our pitches, especially when we are going for someone or something we simply ‘have to have’ for our list.When it’s a major author changing camp, or a household name dangling an autobiography, larger and larger sums come into play, and it’s more than likely that a large corporate publisher will be the only one with deep enough pockets. But in other instances it may be the quality of the editing, the perception of how the author might be cared for and nurtured, or even something much more idiosyncratic that does the trick. When I started in publishing in Australia there was one literary agent. His name was Peter Grose and he was the first employee of Curtis Brown to be sent to the colonies to tickle us up a bit. He was a nice bloke, but it was a bit of a shock when he started jacking up advances, and once I seem to remember he even had the audacity to conduct something suspiciously like a Dutch auction – for a new book by Tom Keneally, I think it was. Now we have more than twenty very able and professional literary agents, and some of the larger of these have formed an association. They are generally very good to do business with, but, of course, they make the books more expensive to buy and they like nothing better than a good round-by-round auction, with several gung-ho publishers pushing up the price, often to heights that can never be earned back by the mere sale of books. Agents have certainly changed the practices of publishing in Australia, mostly for the better. Taking a laptop overseas usually leads to hours of frustration in unfamiliar hotel rooms, listening to on-hold music or talking endlessly to a call centre in Poona or Madras in a desperate and usually fruitless search for an Internet link. But such technological advances undoubtedly make

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for much faster (and more successful) communication between publishing centres, and have made a real difference to business and to the perceived size of the international publishing world. Once it was an occasional trip to London, if that’s where head office was, and everyone told you there was little point in going to New York because they wouldn’t be interested and had only a vague idea about where it was you came from (actually that hasn’t changed much). And we didn’t know any publishers or agents in France or Germany. But now Australian publishers have made their way in the world very well, attending international book fairs as welcome regulars and demonstrating some outstanding successes in sales, particularly with primary readers and educational texts. Our children’s books too are widely recognised as being world-class and are internationally successful: for instance, Graeme Base has sold over two million copies of his various picture books in the United States in hardcover alone. We still import a much larger number of books than we export, and I suspect we always will. After all, we are an English-language market at the end of the world, and only New Zealand has a bigger range of imported titles. But now many Australian publishers have close contacts in a variety of overseas markets. For our population (incidentally, we are almost exactly the same market size as the English-language Canadian market) we punch above our weight, with far less government help than most other countries. When I look at the books I was involved in publishing thirty years ago I do sometimes cringe, although there are a few exceptions. The basic production standards are not so very different now from then, but the difference in design technique, particularly since the advent of the Macintosh, and the use of finishes – everything from fabrics to spot lamination to embossing and beyond – makes today’s book once again the artefact it used to be: a pleasure to buy, read and give. I once belonged to the Folio Society as a way of surrounding myself with beautiful books. Now I find myself involved with making equally beautiful books as part of my everyday working life. In all this, our industry has come a long way, as the annual APA Book Design Awards demonstrate. Another key area of change is the way in which we interact with and sell to retailers. It wasn’t so long ago that a publisher/distributor was measured by the number of reps who could be fielded at any one time. In

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the 1960s, when Lloyd O’Neil was building a new publishing company and needed to impress the London publishers he was about to visit, he had five friends dress up in suits and ties and photographed them standing beside five identical (borrowed) black sedans. They were all wearing hats and the caption read something like: ‘Our experienced sales force, ready to set out on their monthly sales visits.’ Nowadays, we tend to deal directly, at head-office level, with large chains and department stores, and even our wonderful independent booksellers have formed themselves into a buying group. Now the key account manager has become a vital part of the selling process, and the dynamic of the rep’s call has also changed with laptops, PowerPoint presentations and instant ordering via EDI. Computers in bookshops are a mixed blessing for publishers, but, at the same time, booksellers are able to order faster and provide a better service providing the publisher is able to keep up with frequent small orders. Another thing that has changed forever the way we work is BookScan: any publisher who does not keep a daily watch on its titles through BookScan (which measures sales through the till, not through someone’s wishful thinking) is selling itself short (pun intended). In all this, I’m glad to say that there has not been so much change in the way we deal with our authors. Once the contractual negotiations are over it’s down to the same sorts of issues that we have always dealt with together. There is the editorial process, perhaps some robust negotiations over cover design, and an understandable eagerness to know as much as possible about marketing plans, print runs, early sales and so on . . . but the relationship remains personal, respectful and great partnerships develop. There has been much talk in recent years, mostly uninformed, about what some people perceive as ‘slipping editorial standards’. Nothing annoys me more than the smug reviewer who writes ‘what a pity this wasn’t better edited . . .’ without knowing anything of the negotiations that might have gone on between author and editor. Our editors are up there with the world’s best (ask our top authors), and it is only when you know what goes on behind closed doors (and on the phone and via email) that you can properly judge that. There are larger and larger publishers, but there are still small and medium-sized publishers. There are cautious publishers and gamblers. There are takeovers and mergers and consolidations, and every time

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someone tells me we are all doomed and the book is dead, someone publishes a groundbreaking new book, or hits new sales records, or a gutsy new publisher announces a start-up business. Australian Bookseller & Publisher, August 2004, pp. 45–46.

Case-study: Allen & Unwin LOUISE POLAND Allen & Unwin was established in Australia in 1976 and became an Australian-owned publishing company in 1990. It is regarded by some industry observers as the single most interesting publishing company in the recent history of Australian publishing. Renowned for a diverse list, a strong consumer and market orientation, and an efficient distribution agency representing an astute mix of overseas and Australian publishing houses, Allen & Unwin represents a lineage of dedicated publishers. It is also one of five major trade publishers in the Australian marketplace and one of the biggest independent publishers in the world. The company publishes trade fiction and non-fiction for adults and children, an academic list specialising in social sciences and health, and mass-market titles, all under the Allen & Unwin imprint. A judicious choice of agencies, especially Bloomsbury (publisher of the Harry Potter series), ABC Books & Audio, and Orion Publishing Group, has supported Allen & Unwin’s prosperity and visibility in a crowded market. In 2001 Allen & Unwin was publishing 220 titles per year and had achieved a 9 per cent market share. Sales were in excess of $40 million, and 43 per cent of sales originated from Australian publishing. By mid-2005 (a year in which Harry Potter sales didn’t distort figures), Allen & Unwin’s sales were in excess of $66 million, with 50 per cent of sales from Australian publishing and agencies, and 50 per cent from overseas agencies.

British origins George Allen & Unwin was founded in London in August 1914 by British publisher Sir Stanley Unwin and three co-directors who acquired the ailing firm of George Allen & Co. just before the outbreak of World War I. By

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1934 Unwin was sole owner of the firm, which then survived World War II paper shortages and the loss of 1.4 million books during an air raid. George Allen & Unwin’s eclectic list included the works of Bertrand Russell, Spengler’s Decline of the West,Thor Heyerdahl’s The Kon-Tiki Expedition, and J. R. R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit and its epic sequel, The Lord of the Rings. Sir Stanley Unwin remained at the helm of George Allen & Unwin until his death in 1968, at which time his son, Rayner Unwin, inherited ‘a backlist that ran to 2500 titles’. Rayner Unwin, who had started with the firm in 1951 and advocated publication of The Lord of the Rings, travelled frequently to Australia. George Allen & Unwin books were sold and distributed in Australia by the Australasian Publishing Company, which was jointly owned by British publishers Jonathan Cape, Harrap, and George Allen & Unwin. In August 1969 Patrick Gallagher joined George Allen & Unwin as a college rep. He subsequently moved to a commissioning editor’s role and, at his own suggestion, was sent to Australia in 1976 to establish George Allen & Unwin’s Australian branch.

Allen & Unwin in Australia Patrick Gallagher established the Australian branch in the offices of the Australasian Publishing Company at Hornsby on Sydney’s north shore. Marketing and sales director Paul Donovan was appointed as a sales rep at the Australasian Publishing Company in September 1977, having previously gained some experience in bookselling at the Hill of Content Bookshop in Melbourne. In 1977 Roger Ward also was employed in sales at the Australasian Publishing Company, while Rhonda Black worked nearby in Hornsby managing her own secretarial business and working in her father’s print shop. In late 1977, over lunch at a local steak house, Gallagher invited Donovan to join him in establishing ‘an independent, freestanding publishing house on a very small scale’. Gallagher also recruited Rhonda Black and Roger Ward in 1977. Black was his assistant, then she took charge of editorial and production and subsequently became editorial and production director. Ward looked after academic sales. Allen & Unwin Australia opened for business in North Sydney on 1 January 1979 with a team of eight. Although the Australasian Publishing Company continued distribution for George Allen & Unwin, Allen

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& Unwin Australia took responsibility for sales and marketing. In 1979 J. R. R. Tolkien’s bestselling The Silmarillion (paperback edition, with a print run of 150 000) and the first Lord of the Rings film edition (the animated film) provided Allen & Unwin Australia with significant cash flow. Indeed, without Tolkien, George Allen & Unwin would never have been in the position of allowing an Australian company to be set up. From the outset, Gallagher, as managing director, was granted the freedom to develop his own Australian list. He soon became renowned as a ‘very canny, very astute’ entrepreneurial publisher, developing networks in universities and publishing social science titles.With its early titles, Allen & Unwin Australia led social sciences publishing. By the early 1980s Allen & Unwin had also ventured into publishing fiction, including crime fiction. The foundation of the Australian/Vogel Award in 1981 helped propel the hitherto academic publishing company into a wider publishing sphere. In January 1980 Gallagher recruited former Hale & Iremonger publisher John Iremonger, thus removing a ‘leading competitor’. Almost immediately, Iremonger published David Marr’s political biography Barwick (1980) which won the inaugural NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 1981. Gallagher and Iremonger worked together to build the social sciences list and focused on keeping production costs low, appointing Peter Eichhorn as finance and distribution director in December 1981. During the 1980s Allen & Unwin’s survival depended on ‘learning the economics of publishing for a small audience’. In 1983 the company acquired its first major agency, the academic publishing firm Basil Blackwell. In the 1980s Allen & Unwin was part of an increasing trend in Australian publishing: outsourcing editorial, design and production work. By using freelancers, Rhonda Black’s editorial and production department enhanced productivity. By 1985 the company was publishing 120 books a year and had produced a total of 500 Australian titles. By the end of the decade it had become a leading academic publisher with an enviable list, focusing on the social sciences and humanities. In addition to biographical, social science, educational and political titles, Iremonger published books that influenced Australia’s perception of its history, such as Inventing Australia (Richard White, 1981), Frontier (Henry Reynolds, 1987) and Taming the Great South Land (William Lines, 1991). A vigorous women’s studies list emerged in the mid-1980s, including

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Gender at Work (Game and Pringle, 1983), Good and Mad Women (Jill Matthews, 1984) and Contemporary Feminist Thought (Hester Eisenstein, 1984). A military studies list also emerged, somewhat incongruously, alongside the women’s studies list. In the view of Elizabeth Weiss (the current academic publishing director), the publication of an Aboriginal studies list was consistent with Allen & Unwin’s academic publishing, which encompassed labour history, social history, sociology, politics, and gay and lesbian studies. The first Aboriginal studies title, Richard Broome’s Aboriginal Australians, was published in 1982. Allen & Unwin’s rapidly expanding academic list challenged Australia’s established university presses; it also captured some of their authors and markets. Iremonger continued publishing for Allen & Unwin until May 1990 when he joined Melbourne University Press; he returned to Allen & Unwin in 1994 as academic publishing director, a position he retained until his death in 2002. In recognition of Iremonger’s legacy as a publisher, Allen & Unwin founded the ‘John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues’; the inaugural prize was won by Brendan Gleeson’s Australian Heartlands (2006) about urban Sydney. Significantly, Allen & Unwin also expanded its trade publishing in the 1980s and appointed specialist trade publishers. Gradually, the company extended its list beyond its former academic focus. In 1983 Matthew Kelly was appointed as fiction publisher, publishing Tim Winton’s first novels. In 1984 Bridget Williams sold her company to Allen & Unwin Australia and was appointed as New Zealand publisher, then managing director of Allen & Unwin New Zealand, to build a New Zealand list under the joint Allen & Unwin–Port Nicholson Press imprint, which also distributed Allen & Unwin Australia’s titles. Then, in 1985, Susan Haynes, formerly of Methuen, joined Allen & Unwin to establish her own trade imprint, bringing illustrated books and high-profile personality titles to the company. With authors such as John Clarke, Stephanie Alexander and Kaz Cooke, Haynes accelerated Allen & Unwin’s entry into mainstream trade publishing. Susan Haynes’ list was subsequently taken over by Julie Gibbs who published under the Rathdowne Books imprint. Monica Joyce, who joined the company in 1983, and then succeeded Maggie Hamilton as publicity director, played another significant role in the firm’s growth in the trade market.

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In 1986 Paul Donovan wrote to small UK imprint Bloomsbury Publishing to seek Australian sales and distribution rights for its books. This agency subsequently became pivotal to Allen & Unwin’s success, culminating in the Harry Potter series. In 1986 also, Allen & Unwin published David Suzuki’s Metamorphosis, which resulted in ‘a stream of bestselling titles’. Two years later, in 1989, the company commenced sales and distribution for ABC Books. In 1991 Allen & Unwin acquired Australian agency rights for Fourth Estate, whose authors included Annie Proulx and Carol Shields; this agency was lost about ten years later when Fourth Estate was sold to HarperCollins. In 1988 Rosalind Price joined Allen & Unwin as children’s publishing director. Having gained her early experience at A&C Black, a small family-owned children’s publishing house in London, and then at OUP in Melbourne, Price founded her Little Ark imprint and built a quirky and innovative list of original children’s books. As a result of Price’s leadership, Allen & Unwin has become synonymous with a children’s list that focuses on non-fiction series such as True Stories and Discoveries, early readers and junior fiction, as well as young adult fiction. In late 1989 former Triad Paperbacks publisher and Women’s Press (UK) director Stephanie Dowrick joined Allen & Unwin on a part-time basis to extend fiction publishing, working closely with editors Fiona Inglis and Bernadette Foley. Noteworthy titles on Dowrick’s list included Gillian Mears’ The Mint Lawn (1991), Brian Castro’s Double-Wolf (1991) and Andrew McGahan’s Praise (1992). The acquisition of Minette Walters’ The Sculptress (1993) through one of Dowrick’s connections in London resulted in a mutually advantageous long-term author-publisher relationship. Back in Britain, George Allen & Unwin was experiencing financial difficulties, and in 1986 the firm merged with Bell & Hyman to become Unwin Hyman. Allen & Unwin Australia, however, resolved to retain the firm’s established name, and adopted its own distinctively Australian colophon: a sulphur-crested cockatoo. As British profits continued to decline, it became apparent that the Unwin Hyman merger was ill fated. In 1989 HarperCollins, owned by News Corporation, made a bid for Unwin Hyman. As non-executive chair of the Unwin Hyman board, Rayner Unwin unsuccessfully opposed the takeover and resigned in protest on the day before the contract was finalised.

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Australian independence Fortuitously, a very different economic picture had emerged in Australia. By 1990 Allen & Unwin Australia had secured a strong position within the local industry, as well as a substantial annual turnover of about $10 million, with 50 per cent of revenue derived from Australian-originated publishing, totalling about 150 books annually. This encouraged the Australian management team to formulate a bold strategy for independence. On 11 July 1990 Patrick Gallagher, Rhonda Black, Paul Donovan and Peter Eichhorn purchased the Allen & Unwin Australia business as negotiations were in progress for the sale of the British firm to HarperCollins.The Australian directors mortgaged their own house properties and borrowed funds privately to provide 40 per cent of equity, with a further 40 per cent held by Unwin Enterprises – an Unwin family investment company – and 20 per cent by Hambros Bank, along with some loan finance. Thus, the Australian branch of Allen & Unwin became a fully independent company owning the Allen & Unwin imprint throughout the world. Unwin Enterprises and Hambros Bank retained their interest in the new Australian company for most of the next ten years, during which time the directors repaid their debt and bought out the Unwin and Hambros equity. As a consequence of separating from Unwin Hyman and the associated ‘loss of Tolkien and everything that went along with Tolkien’, the new company forfeited nearly 25 per cent of its turnover within six months. As Donovan recalls, this substantial loss – ‘more than $2 million worth of turnover’ – was recovered, in part, following the 1990 Frankfurt Book Fair when Allen & Unwin acquired agency rights for Orion and several small agencies. Within three years, as Orion acquired other companies it became a major agency list. Allen & Unwin also determined to position itself as a ‘major player’ alongside its multinational competitors. Then in 1993 editorial and production director Rhonda Black left Allen & Unwin, selling her shares to the three remaining directors.

Company culture According to Rosalind Price, Allen & Unwin’s staff enjoy ‘humour, intelligence, hard work, idealism, pragmatism, respect for people at every stage in the process – and a happy knack for making up their own rules’.

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Publishing director Sue Hines observes that staff loyalty to the ownerdirectors and a ‘small company mentality’ but ‘big company presence in the market’ are significant aspects of Allen & Unwin’s culture. All publishers must meet an annual target in terms of minimum gross profit, and, although commissioning publishers have ‘more freedom than most’, all publishing projects at Allen & Unwin require the approval of Patrick Gallagher.Allen & Unwin publishers participate regularly in ‘new projects meetings’, as well as in marketing meetings. The company’s independence also led to financial and other incentives for Allen & Unwin staff. In 2001, ten years after the buy-out, over 50 per cent of Allen & Unwin’s staff were shareholders, comprising 15 per cent of the total shares. One of the company’s goals is to retain valued employees by offering staff at all levels a new challenge, especially those ‘who reach a ceiling’. Over the years, selected senior Allen & Unwin personnel – including publishing directors John Iremonger, Rosalind Price, Sue Hines and Elizabeth Weiss, national sales director Lou Johnson, rights and export director Angela Namoi, and company accountant David Martin – have been offered appointments as associate directors. In 2005, as part of a management succession plan, three associate directors – Hines, Johnson and Martin – were appointed as company directors and three new associate directors were appointed: publicity director Andrew Hawkins, production director Lou Playfair, and New Zealand director Sandy Weir. Patrick Gallagher is now executive chairman and publishing director, with Paul Donovan managing director.

Building the list Fiction Allen & Unwin has built a fiction list that includes literary, crime and commercial fiction. Crime fiction authors include D.W. Buffa, John Carroll, Peter Corris, Marele Day, Garry Disher, Kerry Greenwood, Barry Maitland, Jennifer Rowe and Minette Walters. Allen & Unwin has developed a strong ‘commercial fiction’ or mass-market list since the early- to mid-1990s, although the company’s reputation as ‘a serious publisher’ has sometimes slowed mass-market sales. High-profile commercial fiction authors include the prolific Jodi Picoult and Minette Walters; both have

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featured regularly in BookScan’s bestseller lists since 2000. Mass-market fiction from overseas agencies complements Allen & Unwin’s own commercial fiction list. Allen & Unwin continues to administer the Australian/Vogel Award, which established Allen & Unwin’s reputation as a fiction publisher and remains at the heart of the list.The Australian/Vogel Award has provided an important literary launch pad for a number of Australian writers – of both fiction and non-fiction – including Brian Castro, Bernard Cohen, Fotini Epanomitis, Kate Grenville, Sarah Hay, Andrew McGahan, Gillian Mears, Eva Sallis, Mandy Sayer, Hsu-Ming Teo, Tim Winton and Danielle Wood. Allen & Unwin’s literary fiction authors have won a range of literary awards, including the Miles Franklin Award on five occasions.This award went to Tim Winton for Shallows in 1984, Tom Flood for Oceana Fine in 1990, Helen Demidenko for The Hand that Signed the Paper in 1995, Alex Miller for Journey to the Stone Country in 2003, and Andrew McGahan for The White Ea rth in 2005. Allen & Unwin has also been associated inadvertently with occasional literary hoaxes and impostures, including Helen Demidenko (aka Darville) – the Australian/Vogel prize winner in 1993 and the Miles Franklin Award winner in 1995 – whose true cultural identity was revealed in 1995 as English and not Ukrainian, and Paul Radley who belatedly admitted in 1996 that his Australian/Vogel prize-winning novel Jack Rivers & Me (1982) was really written by his Uncle Jack.

Children’s books Allen & Unwin’s children’s list has continued to diversify. Significantly, the school/library market accounts for at least half of all sales. Many children’s and young adult books have been translated into other languages and published overseas. In 2001 children’s publisher Erica (Irving) Wagner, formerly of Penguin then Duffy & Snellgrove, joined the children’s publishing department. Over the years numerous Allen & Unwin children’s titles have garnered highly contested publishing, design and production awards, including frequent Children’s Book Council awards, such as Children’s Picture Book of the Year in 2001 for Fox (Margaret Wild, illustrated by Ron Brooks).

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Non-fiction Allen & Unwin’s non-fiction list focuses on biography, food, gardening, history, military studies, popular science and self-help titles. Bestselling trade biographies include Keating (Edna Carew, 1990), Maggie (Maggie Tabberer, 1999), which sold over 105 000 copies in hardback, Jesse Martin’s Lionheart (2001), which sold over 110 000 copies, and Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike (2002). In keeping with the left sympathies of the list during the 1970s and 1980s, Allen & Unwin’s non-fiction continues to demonstrate a concern for human rights. Examples include the autobiographical trilogy Snake Dreaming (Roberta Sykes), the biography Faith (Marilyn Lake, 2002), and the social histories Freedom Ride (Ann Curthoys, 2003) and Rights for Aborigines (Bain Attwood, 2003). As these titles suggest,Australian history and biography remain central to Allen & Unwin’s non-fiction priorities, although only a quarter of Allen & Unwin’s titles on Indigenous issues are by Indigenous authors.

Academic titles In the 1990s Allen & Unwin’s academic list changed radically in its orientation, acquiring a strong textbook focus. At the same time, an increase in the availability of overseas books in Australia resulted in diminished demand for monographs as well as for academic books overall. Instead of releasing fifty to sixty academic books each year as it did in the late 1980s, Allen & Unwin dropped its output to about thirty-five academic titles per year in the 1990s. Urban studies and cultural studies books were no longer viable, and, as gender studies programs replaced women’s studies in universities, a gender studies list with a postmodern focus emerged. Co-publishing with overseas publishers was recognised as ‘one way of dealing with declining Australian markets’ and a notable proportion of academic titles arose from such co-editions. At the same time, the company developed titles for new Asian markets and developed rights sales in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Editing and design At Allen & Unwin more than 70 per cent of copy editing is outsourced. The company has co-sponsored the Residential Editorial Program which

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alternates with the biennial Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship to New York. The company also takes an active role in the APA Annual Book Design Awards. In the 1990s, as greater emphasis was given to the book cover as ‘the interface between marketing and the bookseller’, Allen & Unwin established an in-house design team. Forty per cent of the company’s design work is now completed in-house.

1990s growth By 1995 Allen & Unwin’s turnover had more than doubled, from about $10 million at the time of the buy-out to $23 million. An unusually flat management structure and a small team culture – often described as ‘a family’ – continued as the company’s guiding organisational principles in the 1990s, an era in which Allen & Unwin’s list became more commercial. Sophie Cunningham, formerly of McPhee Gribble and Penguin Books, joined Allen & Unwin as a trade publisher in 1994. Like Julie Gibbs before her, Cunningham responded to some authors of her own generation. In addition to publishing fiction such as Luke Davies’ Candy (1997) and Paul Kelly’s book of song lyrics, she published non-fiction, including ‘politics and feminism, Indigenous politics, books by musicians, and about the media’. Notable among these were Kathy Bail’s DIY Feminism (1996), Mark Davis’s Gangland (1997), Catherine Lumby’s Bad Girls (1997) and Gotcha (1999), and Andrea Durbach’s Upington (1999). Cunningham’s fiction list was later taken over by publisher Annette Barlow, whose authors include Andrew McGahan and Alex Miller. In 1996 publishing director Sue Hines, who gained her early experience at McPhee Gribble and later at Reed, joined Allen & Unwin to publish across the spectrum of fiction and non-fiction, as well as illustrated books under her own imprint. In her successful tradition of illustrated food books with high design and production values, Hines published Jill Dupleix’s Old Food (1998) designed by Visnja Brdar. Her subsequent food books, including Terry Durack’s Noodle (2000), Charmaine Solomon’s Asian Favourites (2001) and Gabriel Gaté’s Everyday Cooking (2003), have sold well. Indeed, a ‘sizeable market’ is the hallmark of the Sue Hines list. Now publishing gardening and landscape design titles, including the full-colour Patio (2002)

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by television celebrity Jamie Durie, Hines continues to publish bestselling food authors such as Ian Hewitson. During the 1990s Allen & Unwin became renowned – and actively promoted itself – as ‘Australia’s leading independent book publisher’. This assertion assisted the company to position itself as a major player with retailers. At the same time, as Donovan declared in 1997, the company was actively seeking to change its market perception from being ‘a publisher of Australian books’ to that of a ‘publisher for Australians’. Allen & Unwin has since become the ‘darling of the booktrade’. Voted ‘Publisher of the Year’ for the first time in 1992 and a second time in 1996, Allen & Unwin has won this accolade on a further four occasions – in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Among retailers, Allen & Unwin has a reputation for outstanding service supported by a significant investment in publicity and media coverage, along with a substantial contribution to booksellers’ catalogues. The company’s sales force comprised fifteen representatives in 2005, all of whom hand-sold local and overseas stock into independent bookshops, chain booksellers and discount department stores across the country. In recent years sales increases have been achieved equally in all channels. As a result of the trade’s preoccupation with new titles, the frontlist now dominates Australian bookshops and other retail outlets, with trade backlist sales falling. Allen & Unwin’s backlist accounted for 30 per cent of sales in 2005, a reduction from 40 per cent eight years earlier. Allen & Unwin concentrated in the 1990s on acquiring international books from overseas markets, publishers and packagers. The company also secured additional agencies and reviewed its mix of lists. Some overseas agency titles have been especially successful. E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News (Fourth Estate, 1993) sold over 200 000 copies, while Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World (Orion, 1994) sold 145 000 copies. J. K. Rowling’s fourth Harry Potter volume, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Bloomsbury, 2000) – which became the fastest-selling book in history on the first weekend of its release – was another extremely lucrative title. So was the long-awaited fifth volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), with an Australian print run in excess of 750 000 copies.The sixth volume, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), was expected to generate more than a million Australian and New Zealand sales.

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Allen & Unwin’s ‘hand-picked’ mix of agencies includes ABC Books & Audio, Bloomsbury, Continuum, Faber & Faber (since July 2005), Granta, Icon, Orion Publishing Group, Profile Books, and Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Allen & Unwin offers an attractive deal in comparison with its multinational competitors, especially to other independent publishers: less bureaucracy, fewer people making the key decisions, and less rigidity about profit margins. Since 1990, exporting and the sale of international rights have become key activities. Rights director Angela Namoi’s department has developed a thriving business in translation rights to Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Korea and elsewhere. Namoi’s own focus is on the children’s list, which has become ‘the one that travels best’. Allen & Unwin’s largest export market is the United States, and its next largest market is the United Kingdom. An arrangement with US distribution company Independent Publishers Group (IPG) means that a good range of Allen & Unwin’s list is distributed in America, generating close to $1 million in annual turnover. In 1998, with company growth in mind, Allen & Unwin initiated a strategic alliance with Hodder Headline to establish a joint distribution venture. Known as Alliance Distribution Services, the venture opened for business on 1 January 1999. The joint warehouse facility at Tuggerah on the central New South Wales coast has its own management team, which reports through Peter Eichhorn to a separate board comprising three representatives from each company. Since its inception, the facility has afforded growth and delivered cost savings to Allen & Unwin. Growth has included $5–$7 million worth of re-export to New Zealand, including Harry Potter titles.

Conclusion As Allen & Unwin celebrates its landmark fifteenth year as an Australianowned company in 2005, its list offers a strong mix of Australian and overseas titles. This promotes the company’s image as a major trade publisher to book retailers, literary agents and the media. The company’s success also lies in a proven capacity to attract talented publishers, an inclination to retain experienced employees, a judicious selection of

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compatible agencies, a positive relationship with the book trade, a thriving business in translation rights and exports, and a strategic distribution alliance. Significantly, too, Allen & Unwin has developed strategies for flourishing in a mature market and sustaining steady growth in turnover and in market share. With an eye to the future, the company anticipates increasing investment in its own publishing so that it does not become overly reliant on agencies, and has set up a management succession plan. All of these developments augur well for Allen & Unwin’s continuing prosperity and growth. NOTE ON SOURCES Interviews with Sophie Cunningham, Paul Donovan, Stephanie Dowrick, Kathleen Fallon, Patrick Gallagher, Julie Gibbs, Sue Hines, Monica Joyce, Matthew Kelly, Elizabeth Weiss, Bridget Williams and Jackie Yowell (1997–2005), and with Patrick Gallagher (Diana Giese, National Library, 1996; and Donna Williams, 2004), Julie Gibbs (Diana Giese, National Library, 1998), John Iremonger (Sara Dowse, National Library, 1995–96; and Albert Moran, Albert Moran Collection, ADFA, 1988) and Rosalind Price (Robyn Sheahan-Bright, 1999). For a history of George Allen & Unwin (1914–86) and Unwin Hyman (1986–90) see: Stanley Unwin, The Truth about a Publisher: An Autobiographical Record (1960); Rayner Unwin, George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer (1999); Jane Potter, ‘Interview with Rayner Unwin’, Publishing History, 41 (1997); and the Records of George Allen & Unwin Ltd, MS 3282, Special Collections, Reading University Library, University of Reading. For Allen & Unwin Australia, see: Mixed Grain, Celebrating 20Years of the Australian Vogel Literary Award (2002); Angela Crocombe, ‘Allen & Unwin: A Short History’, Publishing Studies 5 (1997); Albert Moran, ‘Inside Publishing’, Continuum 4.1 (1990); Louise Poland, ‘Survive and Succeed’, Publishing Studies 7 (1999), ‘Independent Publishers and the Acquisition of Books’, Journal of Australian Studies 63 (2000) and ‘An Enduring Record’, Australian Studies (BASA) 16.2 (2001); Robyn Sheahan-Bright, ‘The Children’s Book Publisher’, Magpies 14.3 (1999).

Case-study: Lonely Planet TONY WHEELER Maureen and I arrived on Western Australia’s North-West Cape in a rather shonky New Zealand yacht in early December 1972. When we waded ashore it was the first time we had set foot in Australia and we didn’t plan to stay for more than a few months. Gough Whitlam had

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been in power for less than a week and we had no idea that his arrival was about to shake up Australian publishing. In fact we knew nothing about publishing. We certainly had no idea that less than twelve months later we would be Australian publishers, or that more than thirty years later we would still be here, with a turnover of $100 million, three offices around the world and nearly 500 employees. A university newspaper had been my publishing foot in the door. I’d studied engineering at university but the paper was a far more consuming interest than my studies, providing me, as it turned out, with a far better education. We’d barely arrived in Sydney from Western Australia, got jobs and found a Paddington basement flat before people began to ask us how we’d got there. Simple really, we’d bought an old car in London, driven it to Afghanistan, sold it for a small profit, travelled across the sub-continent by anything that moved, hitch-hiked from Bangkok to Singapore, and ended up in Bali where we met a Kiwi yachtie sailing south. But nobody had published a book about that sort of trip and we set out to do it. Across Asia on the Cheap was written in our Paddo flat, and the printed signatures were brought back and collated, stapled and trimmed.With the aid of one bottle of red wine too many in an Oxford Street Italian restaurant, the name of our publishing house was dreamed up out of a Joe Cocker song. And we were in business. We took days off work to learn the hard way about being a book rep and before we knew it our self-published effort had sold out and we’d gone back to the printer for more. A few months later we left Sydney to spend a year in South-East Asia producing our second book, South-East Asia on a Shoestring. Our first book had been pure chance, but this time we set out with the idea of a book in mind from the very beginning. Back in Australia in early 1975 we moved to Melbourne and set to work to turn a hobby into a business. It was tough, and for years Lonely Planet was very much a hand-tomouth business. My father back in England would periodically point out that I had two university degrees – when was I going to get a real job? Australian publishing was in transition, with other houses like McPhee Gribble, Outback Press and Wild & Woolley also popping up. We faced similar problems – distribution being the biggest headache – and Bookpeople of Australia was our attempt at some sort of joint salvation. We also set up the AIPA (Australian Independent Publishers Association) in

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opposition to what we saw as the stuffy ABPA. I remember the Australian ‘old hands’, Lloyd O’Neil in particular, being very helpful and considerate to these young upstarts. By the late 1970s Lonely Planet was definitely standing rather than crawling. Moving out of the back room of the rented house into a real office and trading our $500 rattletrap of a car for something slightly more reliable were major steps forward, but there were other signs of change. Jim Hart joined us from Rigby, giving Lonely Planet a stability which Maureen and I, always rushing off to research the next book, simply could not provide. In 1981, with our India guide, we suddenly jumped from books of 200–300 pages at $2.95 or $3.95 and selling 20 000 to 30 000 copies to a 700-page book at $14.95 which sold 100 000 copies. Though based in Australia, we were a mini-multinational with no allegiance to a particular country. Right from the start we sold our books everywhere and had no fear of producing titles whose key market would not be Australia. On the other hand, we were very Australian in our outlook, in our have-a-go attitude. And travel has always been a quintessentially Australian interest. ‘Oh yes, Lonely Planet,’ Americans would say, ‘those Australian guidebooks to really weird places,’ as if only an Australian could be trusted to publish something on the places we covered. In 1984 we opened our first overseas office in the San Francisco Bay area, moving from merely selling books overseas to actually having a physical presence there. For a year we felt as if we’d bitten off more than we could chew. We were right back to sleepless nights and constant worry about making ends meet, except now the figures were much bigger. Then we turned the corner and all the doubters were suddenly congratulating us on our foresight and enterprise. An office in London followed, like the US operation initially simply to market the Australianproduced titles but later moving into publishing in its own right. The small Australian niche player may well be the world’s biggest travel guide publisher, but travel publishing has moved far beyond ink and paper. Lonely Planet was an early player in the website game and www.lonelyplanet.com is one of the world’s most popular travel websites. It has been followed by a digital photo library, a travel television production company, a business-to-business projects group and a host of

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other non-publishing activities. One thing hasn’t changed: Maureen and I still spend a big chunk of each year ‘on the road’.

Case-study: McPhee Gribble DIANA GRIBBLE Hilary McPhee and I founded McPhee Gribble Publishers in 1975. We established the business during the first year by providing editorial and packaging services to William Heinemann and the University of Queensland Press and we produced the first four in a series of children’s books for Penguin. The first title under the McPhee Gribble imprint, Glen Tomasetti’s novel Thoroughly Decent People, came out in 1976. It was published in hardback, at $6.95, with a jacket by Keith Robertson that set the style for all McPhee Gribble hardbacks to come. At this time the separation between hardback houses and paperback publishers still prevailed. But this old formula was coming to an end internationally as paperback licences for canon authors ran out.The new era began for McPhee Gribble after paperback rights in Helen Garner’s award-winning Monkey Grip (McPhee Gribble cased edition, 1977) were licensed to Penguin. We knew we’d made a mistake. It was a turning point for a house with a talent for unearthing new writers. From then on we published our own paperback editions and began publishing original paperbacks too. Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette’s Puberty Blues (1979) was an exemplar of this style with its under-20 authors and racy subject matter. Several schools banned it, which promoted a certain cult status, with dog-eared copies passed around under the desk. In the mid-1970s the arrival of a baby for each of the founders forced an expansion of the working environment. The firm moved to a threestorey terrace house at 203 Drummond Street, Carlton. An in-house crèche became part of the business and coped with (or promoted) a miniexplosion of babies on the premises. Carlton is Melbourne’s university suburb, once a centre for Jewish traders and boarding-house proprietors, now an enclave for Italian-Australians. Carlton was also a performing arts precinct, with the La Mama and Pram Factory theatres down the road. During the late 1970s and early 1980s McPhee Gribble strove to create financial stability for its operations. Alongside the commitment to

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original publishing went a constant search for fee-producing work. We wrote and produced children’s pages for the Women’s Weekly, and continued to package books for other publishers, including Rigby and Penguin. The Penguin children’s series Practical Puffins, which began in our founding year, and was written and produced by us and illustrated by David Lancashire, continued to expand and had huge international success, underpinning our cash flow for several years. We also had a short-lived joint venture with a UK educational publisher. This phase lasted until the children went off to school and our building was declared unfit for office use by the fire department. In the early 1980s McPhee Gribble moved to a former clothing factory in Cecil Street, Fitzroy, an inner-city suburb that was in the early stages of a conversion to chic neo-bohemia. It is also the site of the public swimming pool made famous by Monkey Grip with its deep-end sign ACQUA PROFONDA. We now had a brothel around the corner to replace La Mama. During the Fitzroy years we concentrated almost exclusively on original publishing. The expansion of our list was largely enabled by a co-publishing arrangement with Penguin Books, promoted by Brian Johns who had become publishing director of Penguin in 1979. Brian enlivened and expanded Penguin’s Australian publishing and believed in creative alliances and the sharing of resources. The two great bugbears of independent Australian publishing houses are cash flow and distribution. A healthy cash flow depends not only on bestsellers but also on a strong backlist. We sometimes said that McPhee Gribble had become a victim of its own reputation – virtually an offshoot of the Literature Board (which always provided strong support for our list).We were there to publish new authors, to persist with short-story collections when larger publishers gave up on them as uncommercial, and to publish commentaries on the state of Australia which added to the debate but were written for a mass market. Under the co-publishing arrangement, agreed print runs of selected titles on our list were bought by Penguin for cash in advance. In exchange, these titles appeared in Penguin covers with a McPhee Gribble/Penguin acknowledgment on the back and on the imprint page. Penguin’s sales and distribution system was certainly superior in those days, but expensive.

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The huge advantage to us was cash flow. The huge disadvantage was that it encouraged us to expand too rapidly and to put too many of our titles under the joint imprint. If sales of pre-purchased titles fell short, we had to recover advances with more publishing, and engage more staff to handle the output. We realised in the mid-1980s that we needed to become less parochial. McPhee Gribble was an intensely Melbourne enterprise. We strengthened our international business with an expanded circle of overseas agents and began buying overseas titles as well as putting more resources into rights sales. Then we looked at our most important Australian market, Sydney. We had a reputation there but not enough activity, so we took a lease on a narrow terrace house in McGarvie Street, Paddington. Writer Robert Drewe told us he’d always had a mild hankering to be a publisher so we signed him on, with a brief to persuade Sydney authors to join our stable. But by then it was clear that the McPhee Gribble business model was not working. To add to our problems, Brian Johns left Penguin in 1987 to become managing director of broadcaster SBS and our co-publishing deal slowly unravelled. We faced the choice of either a dramatic reduction in staff and output or an investment partner to fund our operations properly. We decided to look for a partner. There had always been approaches from larger local and overseas publishers attracted to the style of our list and we began to take them seriously for the first time. But our backlist was in the Penguin warehouse, in Penguin covers. After a destructively long delay, we had to give in and sell the assets of the business in November 1989, from a weak negotiating position, to the only possible purchaser. Hilary joined Penguin as publisher of the continuing McPhee Gribble imprint, and to safeguard Penguin’s investment. In 1992 she left them to join Pan Macmillan as publishing director. I met Eric Beecher and with two others we founded The Text Media Group in 1990 to publish magazines and books. McPhee Gribble caught a wave of change in publishing and writing in Australia and rode it with passion and skill. We were first publishers, or first nurturing publishers, for a varied group of writers who have contributed to our culture, including Beverley Farmer, Brian Matthews, Drusilla Modjeska, Helen Garner, John A. Scott, Kathy Lette, Kaz Cooke,

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Rod Jones, Sally Morrison and Tim Winton. Our list ranged across Australian history, Aboriginal politics, biography, current affairs and children’s books. Perhaps above all we created an environment where ideas mattered, standards were high and anything could happen. I remember a characteristic scene at one of our famous Christmas parties: Aboriginal activist Gary Foley in deep conversation with the Governor of Victoria, whose wife happened to be a McPhee Gribble author. In the last months of McPhee Gribble’s existence we signed a threebook contract with Tim Winton which delivered his novel Cloudstreet to Penguin – the huge bestseller that might have rescued us.

Case-study: Magabala Books DIANA GIESE In September 1974 there was a festival of Indigenous song and dance at Ngumpan, near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia’s north, and those attending voted to establish the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre. The aim was to support traditional leaders travelling to ceremonies, and to protect and develop the work of artists and craftspeople. From this initiative, Magabala Books was born. In 1990 it became an independent Aboriginal corporation, to record, promote and pass on Aboriginal traditions and culture in book form. This is a huge undertaking, since stories have in the past been told orally, or as song or dance. Like the bush banana that is its namesake, Magabala wants to ‘spread the seeds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures’. When young, the banana is green, moist and sweet. It flourishes during the Wet season, and every part of its skin, green seeds and pulp can be eaten. Later it hardens and then dries before dispersing its many seeds. Magabala spreads many of its own seeds by offering employment and training for Indigenous people. The education of individuals and groups about issues of copyright and control has been a further focus. In Indigenous cultures the ownership of a particular story within a community is very complex, not to mention images and illustrations, CDs, films and websites. Magabala and its workers are very much a part of the lively Broome arts scene. From this tiny town of 14 000 people radiates music, dance, theatre and song. The organisation is run by a management committee

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made up entirely of Kimberley Indigenous people. All books published have an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander author, editor or illustrator. Magabala receives submissions from all over Australia, and books have been published from every state except Tasmania. An early success was Bill Neidjie’s Story About Feeling, with its powerful sense of life in coastal Arnhem Land. But there is particular interest in servicing the Kimberley communities, with whom Magabala closely liaises.Workers are constantly out in the communities, listening to people and their ideas.The management committee meets every month, and the editorial committee reads all submitted manuscripts, three or four a month. ‘The germ of an idea might also come in from a community,’ says editor Rachael Christensen. ‘The process of developing it might take four or five years: talking with local families, recording, writing it down.’ Magabala works with two other publishers of Indigenous material, IAD Press in Alice Springs and the Aboriginal Studies Press in Canberra. Together they have published a catalogue, The ABC of Australian Indigenous Publishing, launched in 1997. In 1998 Magabala ran a joint training program with IAD Press and it has shared training programs with Broome-based Goolarri Media Enterprises. Like Magabala, Goolarri fosters the development of Indigenous skills and is active in radio, television and film production as well as music and events management. There are also vital literary, support and funding links interstate for Magabala. If a writer from Queensland sends in a manuscript, Magabala can liaise with the Queensland Writers Centre to appoint a local mentor to help the author develop the manuscript. Bodies such as Arts WA and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council have also given significant assistance over the years. Magabala publishes novels, poetry, life stories and plays. Several authors have published two or more books. The work of traditional storyteller Daisy Utemorrah is presented as poetry and prose in the stunning picture-book form for which the company has built a reputation. She tells morality tales which discourage disobedience and jealousy. Glenyse Ward’s Wandering Girl and Unna You Fullas trace her mission upbringing and the time she was sent to work as a domestic on a wealthy West Australian farm. There have been four collaborations between husband-and-wife team

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Pat Lowe and Jimmy Pike, with Pike providing his distinctive illustrations. Poet and raconteur Alf Taylor uses Nyoongar language and imagery to tell stories ‘with grace, humour and a raw edge’. Magabala also publishes the work of urban novelists Philip McLaren and Bruce Pascoe, while Moola Bulla is a lively oral account of the government-run station near Hall’s Creek, presented multilingually in local languages Kija and Jaru, and also in Kriol. Language maintenance is further stressed in the many bilingual books designed to be read aloud. Children’s publishing has been particularly productive and popular, with many Magabala books translated into languages and cultures that are as different as Japanese and German. The company has recently re-evaluated its role in consultation with the community, at bush meetings and with organisations such as the Kimberley Land Council and the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre.The original aims and objectives are under scrutiny, now that more publishing houses are taking up the work of Indigenous writers and artists. Other issues under consideration include the need to publish material judged as culturally important but which might have limited appeal in terms of the number of books that might sell. Sales of the backlist must be pushed, and priorities determined, including whether to focus more on the Kimberley area. NOTE ON SOURCES National Library of Australia News, July 2002. Magabala has published a Basic Guide to Copyright, ‘in plain English’, about rights and responsibilities in relation to Indigenous writing and art. Diana Giese also interviewed Carol Tang Wei (Magabala management committee member) and Kevin Fong (Broome Shire President, and head of Goolarri Media Enterprises) while in Broome, for the National Library’s Oral History Collection.

Case-study:Text Publishing ANNE GALLIGAN An innovative, independent publishing house, Melbourne-based Text Publishing blends a traditional publishing ethos with shrewd business strategies. Following the sale of McPhee Gribble to Penguin in 1989, Diana Gribble joined forces with Eric Beecher, former editor of the Sydney

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Morning Herald and the Melbourne Herald, to form the Text Media Group. Gribble took charge of book publishing, while Beecher formed a magazine enterprise aimed at the corporate sector. The company quickly expanded, with Beecher and Gribble setting up the glossy freebie Melbourne Weekly Magazine in 1992. Text Publishing was initially established as a joint venture with Reed Books Australia, a company which offered operational flexibility and start-up capital.The first book published by Text (with Reed) was a football title, released the week after Collingwood won the 1990 Grand Final. With a Sunday Age distribution deal, the book was a financial success and was followed by Michael Leunig’s Introspective and Hazel Hawke’s autobiography My Own Life. At this stage Text produced non-fiction titles only, with two dozen books released in quick succession through 1991 and 1992. Most of these were aimed at the mass market, with titles like The Secrets of Successful Marketing, Understanding Asthma, Names for Your Baby and The Rustic Charm of Folk Art.There were a few exceptions, however, including a series of essays on economic rationalism and Australia’s future edited by John Carroll and Robert Manne. Gribble encouraged the philosopher Peter Singer to publish with Text, resulting in How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest (1993). The press expanded through the early 1990s, the worst years of the recession. Michael Heyward, formerly an editor of the literary journal Scripsi, whose publishing and editorial ethic had impressed Gribble, was invited to join the company in 1992. Magazine and book designer Chong Wing Ho also joined the company in 1992, adding a compelling visual design component to Text publications. The alliance between Text and Reed became problematic, however, as dissatisfaction grew with the type of books being published and the substantial outlays needed for bigger books and larger print runs. The partnership was dismantled in 1993, with Reed retaining rights to all published books and, disappointingly, to all those in progress as well. Gribble and Heyward set about recreating the Text publishing environment.The mission was to publish interesting, intelligently written books, both fiction and non-fiction, with a balance between innovation and financial viability. Editorially driven, the press emphasised a commitment to releasing each book, as Heyward suggested, ‘in absolutely its right

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shape’. While acknowledging that the cover, design and marketing were critical elements in a book’s success, he believed that the ‘reading experience’ was paramount. Careful editing therefore became a commercial imperative. The combination of professional expertise within the repositioned company was immediately productive, as the literary reputations and skills of both Gribble and Heyward encouraged authors to submit manuscripts. Potential authors were approached, books were commissioned and projects developed. The first book of the fully independent Text Publishing, and the first adult fiction title, was Shane Maloney’s Stiff, released in 1994. Maloney’s successful Murray Whelan detective series has found an enthusiastic audience in Australia and overseas, becoming a television series in mid-2004. Catherine Ford was another first-time author to spread her wings under the Text banner, publishing Dirt and Other Stories and NYC.When academic Linda Jaivin was first approached by Text she submitted a surprise portfolio of erotic stories. These were published in 1995 as Eat Me, a collection that caused a minor heatwave as Jaivin strutted the festival circuit with wit and panache.Text picked up the promising manuscript Sooterkin by Tom Gilling after Reed was taken over by Random House in 1997. Both Sooterkin and Gilling’s second novel Miles McGinty achieved wide readerships. Text published Murray Bail’s novel Eucalyptus in 1999, which won both the Miles Franklin Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Subsequently Bail’s backlist was re-released for the next generation of readers. Other highlights of the fiction list include Arnold Zable’s Café Scheherazade, Judith Armstrong’s first novel The French Tutor, John Scott’s Warra Warra, The Boy by Julian Davies and several works by crime novelist Peter Temple. Depth and diversity were hallmarks of the non-fiction list. Titles released in 1994 included Jabiluka: The Battle to Mine Australia’s Uranium by Tony Grey, Shadow of 1917: Cold War Conflict in Australia by Robert Manne and Lie of the Level Playing Field: Industry Policy and Australia’s Future by Jenny Stewart. The emphasis on political and social issues, the environment, biography and sport continued. Robert Manne released a succession of titles, including The Culture of Forgetting on the Demidenko affair, The Way We Live Now: The Controversies of the Nineties and Truth Overboard: How the Howard Government Deceived the People.

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Helen Garner was encouraged to bring together a collection of her journalism which became True Stories. Judith Wright’s important autobiography, Half a Lifetime, was released in 2000, while ex-Senator John Button wrote of political life and life after politics. Philosopher Raimond Gaita moved from the biography Romulus, My Father to A Common Humanity: Thinking About Love and Truth and Justice and The Philosopher’s Dog, a series of reflections on the interrelationships between man, animals and nature. Journalist Gideon Haigh put together a series of well-written books on cricket, while the distinctive sporting memoirs of John Harms were combined in Play On: A Sporting Omnibus. Text’s Australian history list is particularly strong. Heyward commissioned Tim Flannery to edit a new edition of 1788 by Watkin Tench, a young soldier with the First Fleet. Two hundred years after its original release, this chronicle of the first four years of convict settlement in Sydney quickly sold almost 20 000 copies. This was followed by other books edited by Flannery: Sailing Alone Around the World, written in 1898 by Joshua Slocum, The Birth of Sydney and The Explorers. Flannery, now director of the South Australian Museum, contributed significantly to the Text list with other titles including Throwim Way Leg on Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya. Historian Inga Clendinnen’s powerful books of history and memoir – Reading the Holocaust, Dancing with Strangers and Tiger’s Eye: A Memoir – have also given depth to this list. In time-honoured publishing style, Text has reprinted a diverse selection of Australian classics. Titles include Henry Handel Richardson’s The Getting of Wisdom with an introduction by Germaine Greer, Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright introduced by author Peter Temple, and the inevitable Henry Lawson collection introduced by Geoffrey Blainey. Three internationally respected books by Alan Moorehead – Eclipse, African Trilogy and Late Education – joined the list too. African Trilogy, an account of the World War II African campaign, provided the satisfaction of selling an Australian writer, first published in Britain, back to the British. Nineteenth-century Australian crime classics also found their way onto this eclectic reprinting program. Text has extended its promotion strategies into the international marketplace, securing overseas rights sales for many titles and buying-in literary fiction from other countries. Literary fiction titles in translation published by Text include novels by Andre

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Makine, Jens Groendahl, Zoe Valdez, Erri de Lucca, Nicollò Ammaniti, Christopher Castellani, Gil Courtemanche and Manuel Luis Martinez. Text Publishing has been releasing around forty titles per year, with seven full-time staff. Heyward acts as both publisher and editor, supported by two editors and one assistant. All editorial work is conducted in-house and book covers are still produced under the hand of Chong Wing Ho. In 2003 Text Media (Beecher, Gribble and a long list of shareholders), along with Text Publishing, was bought by the Fairfax Group for $64.7 million. Text Publishing was subject to a management buy-out and now operates in a co-publishing arrangement with UK publisher Canongate. NOTE ON SOURCES Interview with Diana Gribble by Diana Giese,Australian Publishing Oral History Project, National Library, ORAL TRC 3425, 1996; Michael Heyward interview with Ramona Koval, Books and Writing, Radio National, 1998; Kim Hutchins, ‘Playing for Keeps’, Australian Bookseller and Publisher, June 1998, pp. 36–37.

CHAPTER 5

Bookfutures Richard Walsh In August 2000 a group of top executives from Microsoft along with Barnesandnoble.com and several American book publishers organised a press conference in NewYork to usher in the coming age of the electronic book. Jack Romanos, president of Simon & Schuster, told journalists:‘We believe the e-book revolution will have an impact on the book industry as great as the paperback revolution of the 60s.’ Laurence Kirshbaum, chairman of the books division of AOL Time Warner, pledged to lead the charge: ‘We want to see electronic publishing blow the covers off of books’. Andersen Consulting estimated that by the year 2005 digital books would account for 10 per cent of all book sales. After such portentous predictions, it now appears that the main advantage of electronic books is that they gather no dust. In the last few years, 500 copies has constituted a ‘good sale’ for an e-book in the United States. One of the most successful has been Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, one of the biggest literary bestsellers in the last decade, which has sold all of several thousand in e-format. Given that it costs about US $4-600 to convert a 400-page book, plus proofreading costs, this is a nickel-&-dime business. ‘Perhaps we were too-early adapters,’ Time Warner’s Laurence Kirshbaum now says ruefully. ‘We were the early birds who went out to catch the early worms and there weren’t very many.’ Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, which commissioned the

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original study by Andersen Consulting, acknowledges that its forecast seems unrealistic today. ‘I think everybody has hit the pause button on e-books for the moment.’

The resilience of paper Twenty years ago, of course, it was fashionable to predict not only the end of books but the end of paper, but this too has proven a mirage. The worldwide consumption of paper for writing and printing has in fact more than doubled since 1982. Indeed, the fastest growth in the consumption of paper in the last hundred years came during the 1980s with the spread of personal computers. By distributing ever more information cheaply and easily, the Internet is clearly behind much of this automated logorrhoea, this avalanche of words on paper. Several hundred million e-mails are exchanged each day in the US alone, and many recipients keep hard copies. About 200 million pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are viewed on the Web each month and, though nobody can say how often they are printed out, sites increasingly provide ‘printer-friendly’ versions of their pages formatted for easier reading on paper. Reviewing this trend a few years ago, The Economist recalled that the Starr Report – that scintillating investigation of Bill Clinton’s relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky – became an instant bestseller as a printed book in the US even though it was at the same time available free on the Net. Why buy a book when the Net offered it for free? According to The Economist: There are good reasons for this. Some are obvious. Desktop screens must be read sitting up in a fixed position. Even laptop displays are not nearly as portable as paper, and their viewing angles are limited. Some other factors are less obvious, such as the contrast, brightness and resolution of text on a screen. Most people think that the text on a reasonable computer is clear enough to be perfectly readable, at least under good conditions. In fact it is not, which is part of the reason why people often choose to read on paper instead. Experiments by John Gould and his colleagues at IBM in the 1980s showed that reading from paper was up to 30 per cent faster than reading from screens, and that the lower resolution [sharpness] of text on a screen is largely why.

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Not only are today’s computer screens too fuzzy, they are also the wrong shape. They are designed for watching, not reading; they are descendants of television sets, not books.That is why their displays have a ‘landscape’ orientation (i.e. they are wider than they are tall). Most printed and written reading materials are ‘portrait’ oriented (taller than they are wide).

The immediate ancestor of today’s book was the codex, a pile of pages stitched together, which replaced rolled-up scrolls in the late Roman era. Codex technology meant a text could be flipped through without laborious unrolling. The upgrade from scrolls to codex was a state-ofthe-art technical advance which computers have largely thrown away by demanding that screen users return to scrolling. To meet these problems the computer industry at first came up with two technological advances.

The E-book and its Reader Firstly, Microsoft developed its so-called Microsoft Reader program.This provides readable type, dispenses with scrolling and features a typeface called ClearType, evening out the type edges and thus tripling the resolution of screen text. Its main competitor, Adobe’s CoolType, achieves much the same result. Secondly, E-book Readers were developed – single-purpose devices whose function is to display reading matter in a book-like fashion. The most popular was the Rocket E-book, which went on sale in November 1998. The Rocket E-book and its main competitor, the SoftBook, were acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s Gemstar International at the end of 2000 and it was announced that both devices would disappear – to be merged into one company, one device (called an REB) and one technology. Clearly Murdoch was trying to corner the market in E-book Readers. But before we get to the unfortunate results of this abortive attempt to control the future of the book, it is worth remembering some of the optimism that surrounded e-books at the beginning of this millennium. At that time the e-book looked set to decimate the traditional printed book, which is sometimes now referred to as the p-book. Starting in 2000 a proliferation of websites offered free e-book versions of out-of-copyright texts in different formats. An article by Andrew

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Riemer in the Sydney Morning Herald in March 2001 provided a useful overview of some of these endeavours, including the pioneering Gutenberg Project, which now offers almost 17 000 free out-of-copyright titles and was begun as long ago as 1971.

Economics of e-publishing From the first moment when e-books began to look like the Next Big Thing, mainstream book publishers, displaying the remarkable opportunism that has allowed them to survive for so long, began to hop onto the bandwagon and to make some of their new titles available electronically. The results of this effort have been somewhat mixed, to say the least. Stephen King was one of the most visible early experimenters with the new medium, releasing his novella Riding the Bullet on the web in March 2000 in association with his publisher. Half a million people down-loaded it and this of course inspired imitation. Four months later King took a different tack and launched a serial novel called The Plant, which was promoted via his personal website. King published this work, based on a story he had begun in the 1980s, chapter by chapter, and declared that he would only continue it each month if fans continued to pay for new instalments. ‘This experiment got off to a good start’, reported Angus Kidman in the Australian in September 2001: More than 116 000 people coughed up $US1 to download the first two chapters. However, the project never got past chapter five. King proclaimed that he was bored with the project and wanted to work on other titles. He added that most net users had the ‘attention span of grasshoppers’, while dedicated book lovers didn’t consider the electronic format to be a ‘real book’. While The Plant itself remains unfinished (King has said he might resume the project in the future) pirate copies of the published sections are still widely available on-line.

A similar experiment in Australia in late 2000, featuring Bryce Courtenay’s Meeting at the Smoky Joe Café, appears also to have been something of a commercial flop. With the bursting of the much-hyped tech bubble in 2001, the e-book

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has not proven to be the success story that was predicted for it by that eminent group of American visionaries who met together in August 2000. Henry C. Yuen, chief executive of Gemstar, the News Ltd company that took over the manufacturer of the Rocket E-book, deleted the free library of e-books that had attracted potential buyers and tried to funnel all sales through Gemstar’s website.Yuen’s aim was to control the emerging market in e-books. Instead, he practically stopped it in its tracks. The failure of Gemstar, which had other problematical irons in the fire besides e-books, caused Rupert Murdoch’s company to write off many billions of dollars worth of investment in this troublesome subsidiary. Yet, despite the fact that over the last five years some of the world’s biggest publishers have curtailed their flirtation with e-books and closed their pioneering e-book subsidiaries – among them Random House’s AtRandom and AOL Time Warner’s iPublish – and in September 2003 Barnesandnoble.com stopped selling e-books, it appears that this form of publishing is not quite dead. Cliffs Notes study guides, for example, became available on the net in 1999 and since then have proven very popular; they seem to be the only books that reliably sell more than 1000 copies in the new format. Not surprisingly perhaps, sales have been best on Sunday nights as assignment deadlines loom. While the early predictions were over-hyped, the indications are that the consumer market for e-books is slowly growing in America and, more pronouncedly, in countries like South Korea and Japan. In the US total sales are a well-guarded secret but seem to be around the $10 million mark, reflecting unit sales of a little more than one million per annum. According to Keith Titan, on-line marketing manager at Simon & Schuster in New York, it’s all a matter of ‘price and device’. Retail prices for e-books are typically 20-25% less than the equivalent printed book. The device most people are preferring these days is the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), particularly, according to Publishers Weekly, ‘the new Palm, Sony and IPAC devices with their brilliant, high-resolution color screens’. Then in October 2004 E-books Corporation agreed to supply a range of book excerpts via Nokia phones, an interesting new direction for the electronic version pioneered by a Western Australian enterprise with a truly international reach. In Australia major publishers make their printed books available for

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on-line reading in a very limited way. On-line versions of new books, particularly educational and academic titles, are provided to libraries by a number of new enterprises, typically at a higher price than the recommended retail price of the printed versions. So far the flow of revenue from these activities has been modest and on-line publishers have to meet the cost of conversion of print-ready pdf (portable document format) files to web-ready pdf files. In a perceptive piece in September 2003, Wired quoted Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group, as predicting that e-books may find their niche with tech-savvy youth unfazed by the notion of browsing literature on a screen, and the growing legion of retirement-age readers. ‘Two audiences that will benefit best are young people who loathe the idea of a library . . . and aging people who want the convenience of large type on demand,’ or freedom from lugging heavy hardcover tomes. But ‘while major publishers have committed to e-books, concerns about piracy – which has ravaged the music industry – may limit the number of new titles that are made available’.

New technologies: E Ink It is beyond the scope of this overview to provide a definitive account of the technology and future directions of e-books. However, there is no doubt that some of the earlier difficulties with reading e-books are gradually being conquered. One of the most promising new technologies may be E Ink (Electronic Ink). Researchers at Cambridge, Massachusetts came up with the first working prototype of an electronic ink display attached to a flexible, silicon-based thin-film transistor backplane. Their prototype was a functional display that you could twist, bend or throw against the wall without disturbing a single electron. Their ultimate goal is to produce RadioPaper: sheets of reusable e-paper containing radio frequency ID tags that download a new edition of, for example, the Wall Street Journal each morning into the same physical display. Electronic ink is composed of tiny, translucent microcapsules no wider than a human hair. Each capsule contains millions of particles, each of which has either a positive or negative charge. The positive particles are

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black and the negative ones white, and the electrical charge applied to the microcapsule determines which particles will rise to its surface. The ‘ink’ – a sheet of these microcapsules – is integrated into a display where the final product presents an image that mimics the printed page. It is easy on the eye and can even be read outside on the beach – and at an angle. In early 2006 the Sony Reader was launched; its screen is made of electronic paper and, boasting a battery life of 7500 pages before it requires a recharge, its initial price tag was US$3-400. Having secured rights with major publishers, including Random House, HarperCollins and Penguin, Sony claimed that they would do for books what Apple had done for music.

D-Books/Print on Demand But, for the moment, the vast majority of people don’t seem to want to read whole books on their computer screens nor, for that matter, on their special e-book reading machines nor on their PDAs. Indeed, to confuse matters more, for a while the future of the book went running off in an entirely different direction with the development of Print On Demand. POD is technically not e-publishing at all but digitised texts transmitted on-line to the printery.These days most magazines and books now arrive at their printery as digitised text, transferred from publishing computer to printing plate without the production of traditional printing film. Offset printing involves inking a blanket. Digital printing, on the other hand, is a modern means of producing very small runs of books using toner, like a very fast photocopier. James Norman in the Sydney Morning Herald in April 2002 provided a timely update on exactly where this is headed: What will the bookstore of the future look like? . . . It may allow customers to select virtually any title in the history of publishing from massive databases, and automatically print and bind that book in the time it takes them to drink a café latte. Print on demand (POD) is rapidly changing the way books are printed, published and consumed worldwide. The first POD facilities are already up and running in Australia, both at point-of-sale and publisher level.

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But, after an initial burst of enthusiasm, POD seemed to run out of puff. A successful solution for small-run printing, it no longer looked attractive as a single-copy proposition. Then, in late 2005, new business models for the electronic delivery of book content caused concern and excitement in equal measure among publishers world-wide. Amazon and Google unveiled pay-per-page models that seem to allow readers to sample books or indeed read only those sections of a book that really interest them. Clearly this might increase the sales of some books and scuttle the prospects of others. And, of course, as a major source of continuing anxiety, there lurked the everpresent danger of wholesale piracy. As always in such matters, various publishers took fiercely opposing views. Once upon a time all books were published first in hardback and only the most popular of them were offered as paperbacks. Today most books appear at first in paperback and only those offering special commercial prospects appear in hardback. But we are probably moving towards a tomorrow when books will appear initially on-line, to be read or sampled on-screen or perhaps produced in micro print-runs as digital books, and then the most popular will later appear in ink-on-paper editions. While books are now being trialled on-line and others are being excerpted there, probably for a long time yet – maybe even forever – the most prestigious way in which an author may dream of being published will be with a printed book. NOTE ON SOURCES David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Forecasts of an E-Book Era Were, It Seems, Premature’, New York Times, 28 August 2001; ‘The paper chase’ (reprinted from The Economist), Australian, 12 January 1999; Andrew Riemer,‘Reading between the dots’, SMH Spectrum, 3 March 2001; Angus Kidman,‘On-line book heist’, Australian’s Media Section, 13 September 2001; Steve Ditlea, ‘The Real E-books’, Technology Review, July/August 2000 (http://209.58.177.220/ articles/july00/ditlea.htm; David Cameron, ‘Flexible Displays Gain Momentum’, Technology Review, January 2002; James Norman, ‘Print up a book while you wait’, SMH’s Next section, 2 April 2002; Ralph Lombreglia’s writings in the on-line version of The Atlantic (for an index of these see http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/digicult/lombreg/rllist. htm) – in particular see ‘The Ghost of E-books Past’ (14 December 2000) and ‘Exit Gutenberg?’ (16 November 2000); Owen Gibson, ‘That Friday feeling’, The Guardian, 18 February 2002; Charles Wright, ‘Electronic books lose the plot’, SMH’s Next section, 25 June 2002; Paul Ham, ‘Dancing Dinosaurs’, SMH, 25 May 2002.

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Case-study: Content Streaming SIMONE MURRAY Book publishing increasingly functions as a component of the larger media economy. Multinational media conglomerates with holdings in publishing look to their book divisions as providers of media ‘content’. Digitised content may arise out of a book property and be adapted for use in other, screen-based media such as film, television or computer games. Conversely, content may be incubated in screen formats and repackaged in book versions such as novelisations, film companion titles and tie-in editions. Occasionally the process works in both directions, sometimes simultaneously. In their enthusiasm for acquiring publishing houses, media multinationals are primarily in search of intellectual property in the form of copyright- and trademark-protected content. Once converted into the digital media industries’ common binary language, such content becomes repurposable in any of the diverse media platforms controlled by the conglomerate. The term ‘content streaming’ is employed to convey the fluid nature of content in the twenty-first century’s highly converged digital media environment. Expanding the core definition of media ‘streaming’ – namely, the delivery of audio and video content via the Internet – the term denotes contemporary media industries’ practice of multipurposing content, and their emerging preference for content with inherent multiformat potential. Such industry enthusiasm reflects astute commercial reasoning. In a sector characterised by constant innovation and rapid technological obsolescence, it is commercially advantageous to own multipurposable content software rather than easily outmoded media hardware. The strategy of streaming content across formats within a single corporation was made possible by the concentration of ownership in global book publishing during the last decades of the twentieth century. Initially, the absorption of formerly independent publishing houses into multinational organisations tended to be characterised by horizontal integration, with larger publishers purchasing smaller firms and merging backlists and support functions in pursuit of greater profit margins. The colophons of firms so absorbed tended to remain, mounted like huntinglodge game trophies, on the letterheads of multinational houses.The new

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owners appeared, paradoxically, to crave the aura of literary respectability the logos exuded precisely as they disdained the commercial amateurism which had frequently permitted their purchase in the first place. The consolidation of book industry functions within multinationals was further accelerated by simultaneous moves towards vertical integration of book production processes such as manufacture and distribution under the corporate aegis. Most spectacularly, the 1990s further witnessed the diagonal integration of book publishers within diversified multimedia conglomerates with holdings concentrated in the electronic media. Capitalising on Western governments’ deregulatory economic policies during the period, a handful of globalised media players emerged with the structural capacity and managerial will to incubate and promote high-budget content franchises across all corporate subdivisions. The corporate world’s rapid wave of publishing mergers has sponsored numerous laments from industry insiders bemoaning the effects of rapid corporatisation on literary quality. This emerging genre interweaves cultural criticism with professional memoir, numbering among its proponents Jason Epstein (2001), André Schiffrin (2000) and Michael Korda (1999) in the United States, Diana Athill (2000) in the United Kingdom, and Hilary McPhee (2001) in Australia. A keynote of these laments is the debilitating consequence of viewing literary output as merely another corporate commodity, expecting it to be produced, marketed and sold according to accounting regimens. The genre monitors how pressure for demonstrated profits from corporate publishing divisions has led to the erosion of former working habits across the industry: editors moving rapidly between houses lure name authors to new lists; stratospheric advances for selected frontlist authors mire mid-list books in a publicity wilderness; frenzied over-production and chain bookshop discounting result in alarmingly high rates of returns; and increasingly buffeted authors vest their faith and 15 per cent commissions in celebrity literary agents, who spring up to fill the gap left by the demise of the career-nurturing editor. Given the well-documented failure of multinational-owned publishing divisions to generate profits comparable with the more lucrative electronic media, the question arises as to what media multinationals hope to gain by remaining in book publishing. It is here that the centrality of the book to the corporate strategy of content streaming is most clearly discernible.

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The content inhering in books which attracts the commercial attention of multinationals appears to have two aspects: a conceptual manifestation (where narratives, characters and what industry parlance terms ‘indicia’ form part of larger content franchises) and a textual manifestation (where the key asset is the repurposable text of the book itself). This second, textual manifestation has energised developments around e-books and print-on-demand technologies, although the current wave of copyright disputes and battles for market share between incompatible e-book formats has inhibited the growth of these markets to date. Demonstrating far more convincing commercial returns is the aspect of content manifested in conceptual ‘indicia’. The most prominent and profitable media franchises of the twenty-first century’s opening years – be they Spider-Man (2002; 2004), The Lord of the Rings (2001; 2002; 2003), Harry Potter (2001; 2002; 2004) or Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001; 2003) – have all versioned their content in multiple book formats. This has occurred irrespective of whether the content originally appeared in print form (as in the case of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings) or was subsequently reformatted in book versions after comic book and film versions (as in the case of Spider-Man) or computer game and film versions (as with Tomb Raider). A content franchise’s original format appears largely immaterial; so long as a property has demonstrated market penetration in a single format it can be broken apart, licensed and reformatted in ancillary packages almost ad infinitum. Subsidiary licensing and adaptations thus no longer constitute desirable additional revenue streams for particularly successful branded content. As the commercial strategies and internal structures of globalised media conglomerates encourage the development of content franchises from which all corporate subdivisions can derive revenue, ‘streamability’ increasingly comprises a content package’s raison d’être. Books realise their component role in the economy of streamed content both as content reservoirs and as content repackagers. As incubators of content, books have significant advantages: their publication involves relatively low levels of risk capital; they enjoy residual popularity as leisure commodities; and bestselling titles frequently garner devoted followings which demonstrate existing markets for subsequent content re-versioning. As former Random House US executive Alberto Vitale enthusiastically described the process, ‘Many times, the book is the beginning in the

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content chain that leads to other products’. Pursuing similar logic, News Corporation in the mid-1990s established an office of its HarperCollins division on the Fox film lot in Los Angeles, the better to encourage the optioning of HarperCollins titles for film development in order to ‘create brands across the company’. Equally, competitor Walt Disney Company, perhaps the global market-leader in synergistic branded properties, grants preferential contractual terms to authors of its Hyperion imprint selling film rights to Disney studios. Each of the major media multinationals employs executives specifically to engineer content streaming strategy, their brief being to link horizontally what are often historically autonomous divisions through the identification and development of company-wide content brands. Book publication conversely functions as a means of generating revenue by repackaging screen-originated phenomena in book form – what a senior manager for licensing and media at Scholastic describes as creating ‘souvenirs of the movie’. If the notoriously out-of-sync production lead-times between film and book divisions allow, print versions of content franchises can additionally serve a useful cross-promotional function: familiarising potential audiences with a film’s key artwork, while bestowing the residual cultural capital of the book format on often more ephemeral screen products. Books here serve the unfamiliar role of publicity generators, their contribution being measured not by revenues accruing to the book division so much as by contribution to the bottom line of the overarching content franchise. As Random House/Vintage associate publisher Anne Messitte reinforces, ‘All our books have movie art on the covers; what we do is beneficial to the movie companies as well. They have free advertising placed in every bookstore in the country . . . [The in-store displays] should sell the movies as well as the books.’ As if to encapsulate this pervasive trend, media multinational Viacom announced in February 2002 that the remaining trade list of prominent US publisher Simon & Schuster was to be integrated into Viacom’s entertainment group. A significant part of Simon & Schuster’s brief henceforth would be to ‘publish books based on films and movies from [Viacom’s] Paramount studios and other divisions’, among them cable television channels MTV, Nickelodeon and VH1. The symbolism of such a corporate restructure is stark: book publication, long regarded as the entrée to high-cultural longevity,

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has here been transformed by wider industry forces into a subordinate element of digital content operations. The content and format of books, long regarded by book historians as intricately interlinked, now appear increasingly of value precisely to the extent that they can be digitally dissociated. Globalised media conglomerates’ increasing investment in highly streamable content with international appeal carries profound implications for the book industry in Australia.While Australian book publishing continues to be dominated by subsidiaries of multinational houses (themselves often components of multimedia conglomerates), the entry of Australian-authored content into global distribution networks is by no means assured. Australia’s positive market profile as an Anglophone nation of enthusiastic book purchasers is counterbalanced by its relatively small market base, vast geographical distances and ageing demographic profile, all pointing towards a future role as consumer, rather than producer, of globally disseminated content.To the extent that a fashionable northernhemisphere interest in Australian content remains current, Australia may expect to enjoy success with a limited number of content offerings geared to appeal to the preconceptions of international audiences. But the development in Australia of vigorous cultural industries for domestic consumption and broadscale export remains problematic. Having cast off its branch-office status in international book publishing only since World War II, Australia should be wary of adopting the role of cultural client state in the twenty-first century’s digital marketplace. NOTE ON SOURCES Martin Arnold, ‘Page to Screen and Back Again’, New York Times, 18 November 1999, E3; Diana Athill, Stet: A Memoir, London, Granta Books, 2000; Tom Engelhardt, ‘Gutenberg Unbound’, Nation, 17 March 1997, pp. 18–21, 29; Jason Epstein, Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, New York, Norton, 2001; David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Publisher Is Put Under Entertainment Umbrella’, New York Times, 1 February 2002, C2; Michael Korda, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, New York, Random House, 1999; Hilary McPhee, Other People’s Words, Sydney, Picador, 2001; Mark Crispin Miller, ‘The Crushing Power of Big Publishing’, Nation, 17 March 1997, pp. 11–18; Jim Milliot, ‘It’s All About Content’, Publishers Weekly, 24 June 1996, pp. 28–30; Chris Petrikin, ‘Is Hollywood Learning to Go by the Book?’, Variety, 16 December 1996, pp. 1, 99, and ‘Book Biz: Read It and Weep’, Variety, 12 May 1997, pp. 1, 77–78; Judy Quinn, ‘The Hollywood/Book Embrace’, Publishers Weekly, 5 April 1999, pp. 101–4; Karen Raugust, ‘Film Tie-ins, A Risky Business’,

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Publishers Weekly, 14 May 2001, pp. 34–36; André Schiffrin, The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read, London, Verso, 2001; Robert Sessions, ‘Providing the Content’, Media International Australia 81 (1996), pp. 59–63.

Case-study: Publishers On-line ANNE GALLIGAN The Internet has already significantly altered the established modes of production and distribution within the publishing industry. The initial response of Australian publishers, however, has been rather guarded, with many maintaining an intellectual and emotional commitment to the book in its traditional form. For consumers, by-passing established distribution channels with electronic delivery systems makes sense in a country where physical distribution of stock has always been a challenge. Some sectors of the book industry will be better placed to make the transition to on-line publishing and most companies are re-examining their businesses in the context of both physical and virtual realms. Information-based publishers in particular have developed strategies to use different levels of technology. Butterworths, for example, a company specialising in law publications, legal databases and specialist legal services, now uses the new technologies as an active part of its distribution and marketing. The Internet represents the clash of two powerful but separate cultures.The first is driven by the academic ethos of the free and unimpeded dissemination of information and knowledge. The academy is, after all, where the Internet began to thrive. Underlying this is a strong ideology based on the democratisation of the public sphere through freedom of access. The opposing culture is driven by growing commercialisation. Powerful business and government interests are determined to control, or at least harness, this mushrooming global marketplace. In this environment the unit to be traded is information, including even ‘thought packages’. Traditionally information has been captured in the printed book and publishers now recognise the resource base available to them. In the on-line world, publishers are making a shift from being not so much ‘carriers of culture’, as defined by Mike Featherstone,

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but ‘carriers of content’. This is creating a change in the way publishers are presenting their role and promoting their products. The flexibility and cost effectiveness of on-line promotion are increasingly apparent.The popular Ozlit website/portal lists over 100 publishing companies in Australia with an Internet presence. Most publishers’ sites offer a range of general information such as company history, book catalogues, policy on manuscript submissions and contact details. Simple author/title searches, front covers of new releases and short extracts virtually offer an in-store browsing experience. Other features include author interviews, book reviews, reading group and/or chat group facilities, educational resources and some subscription services. These sites usually provide some form of on-line ordering facility, with links to bookstores such as Australian On-line Bookshop, Gleebooks or Dymocks. Publishers targeting the education market are developing a more extensive and ambitious range of services. Supplementary on-line resources for teachers and students are gaining in popularity, as evidenced in Allen & Unwin’s e-Study Centre which offers detailed study skills information and additional textbook support services. Web-based research activities and on-line teacher tutorials have been developed by Curriculum Corporation, and an increasing number of publishers are providing detailed teaching notes for selected novels. McGraw-Hill offers a customised publishing service (basically print-on-demand) and Macmillan provides downloadable updates of textbooks. Heinemann Interactive presents an extensive resource centre targeting the science and geography areas, while Scholastic has branched into producing multimedia interactive educational software on CD ROM. The university presses are starting to take advantage of the intellectual resource base of their academic staff. The Melbourne University Press website has advertised CD ROM titles and University of Queensland Press has experimented with an electronic text – a medical resource book. An example of these on-line strategies working in a completely different sector of the industry is the Butterworths Legal Information Centre.This comprehensive site provides a range of specialist subscription services to the legal profession with links to Australian legal resources, Australian Corporation Law legislation and High Court updates, and a Daily Legislation Alert operating as an e-mail notification service.

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On-line promotion enables the publishing house to relate directly to the reader, rather than aiming promotional effort at the bookseller. This reader focus opens up an environment in which the publishing house can be promoted more directly as a brand name, building on its history, reputation and high-profile authors. The virtues of small independent publishers can also be effectively promoted using imaginative website designs and browser-savvy links. For multinationals operating in Australia, the mother site is one click away, which can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is easy to be upstaged by the plethora of titles and options offered on Big Mama’s home site. Penguin Australia obviously benefits from the prestige and recognition factor of the Penguin brand name, ranked the tenth greatest media brand in the world, according to Penguin On-line (UK). On-screen, the little Penguin logo swirls across an orange background as the words flash up, ‘Always read the label’. Penguin Australia has established an effective website that strongly promotes its Australian list and authors. This is in contrast to the HarperCollins Australia site, which shows little differentiation between local and imported books, although the author profiles are mainly Australian. The on-line presentation of the Australian-owned companies clearly emphasises their independent position and ethos.Allen & Unwin proudly declares its status as an independent publisher, positioning the company as innovative and award-winning. Text Publishing’s website denotes quality but offers a somewhat limited range of additional material. The university presses underline the essential role they continue to play in Australian intellectual and cultural development. The combination of highlighted titles and significant links effectively demonstrates this commitment. Spinifex Press is defined by its ideological position, with its feminismin-action philosophy emphasised by the political and social agenda of the hyperlinked sites it promotes. Indigenous issues are clearly evident in the strong on-line presence of Aboriginal Studies Press. As part of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies this website links to a powerful mixture of sites covering native title and land rights, human rights and legal issues, and Indigenous languages (with some soundtracks). Associated sites include a wide range of community and health links, family history, arts and intellectual property links. This underlines the cultural, educative and political roles of these sites.

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Australian publishers are still in a transitional phase, with sites and services being upgraded regularly. It is obvious that publishers are maintaining their commitment to the printed book and the processes of production and marketing that have already made them successful. Publishing companies are also establishing their base on-line, setting up shop and positioning for future developments, with some already digitising material and reorganising content for on-line delivery. NOTE ON SOURCES Mark Bide, ‘Introduction’, From N to X:The Impact on the Publishing Value Chain from Online Networks, Vista Computer Services, 1997; INFO2000 1998: Content and Commerce Driven Strategies in Global Networks, Gemini Consulting, 1998; Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity, Thousand Oaks, California, Sage Publications, 1995, p. 15.

Case-study: Copyright and Electronic Text LEANNE WISEMAN In recent years, copyright principles developed for paper-based works have successfully been adapted to electronic works, with existing rights expanded to include a right ‘to communicate works to the public’. This right allowed copyright owners to control the ‘making available’ of their works on-line, including the digitising and uploading of material onto an Internet server. The defences available for paper-based texts, such as fair dealing, were also extended to cover works in an electronic form. The main challenge posed by the creation of electronic texts relates to the enforcement of copyright owners’ rights. As digital technologies enable readers to access, copy and download digital works with the simple click of a mouse, electronic texts are particularly vulnerable to pirating. These fears were reinforced by the rise of peer-to-peer share networks, such as Napster and Gnutella, which have enabled millions of songs to be freely swapped between users on the Internet. Owners of electronic texts were worried that without additional legal protection the same fate would befall them if their works were available on-line. Concerns that the illegal downloading of books could become as big a problem as Napster were reinforced by studies such as those carried out by Envisional,

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which found 7300 copyright titles (including more than 700 copies of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books) freely available through file-sharing networks such as Gnutella. As a form of self-help against piracy, copyright owners turned to technological measures to prevent the transferring, copying and printing of their works. While technological locks provided copyright owners with some relief, they were not infallible. This was because users were able to circumvent the locks and de-crypt the work. In order to buttress the technological protection measures, the federal government introduced a raft of enforcement provisions that aimed to enable copyright owners to enforce their rights in the digital environment. Two important technological protection measures are recognised in Australian copyright law: those dealing with circumvention devices and services and those which relate to rights management information. In relation to anti-circumvention, Australian copyright law prohibits the manufacture, marketing and supply of a device or service used to circumvent technological protection measures such as program locks. This new regime provides legal support to the growing use of technological protection measures such as encryption, passwords and digital watermarks, used by copyright owners to protect works in a digital format. A number of exceptions allow copyright users to circumvent a copyright owner’s technological protection measures in limited circumstances. Copyright law also makes it an offence if someone intentionally removes or alters electronic rights management information (such as digital watermarks attached to or embodied in a copy of a work, as well as numbers or codes that represent such information in an electronic format). Rights management information typically includes details about the copyright owner and the way the copyright material may be used. This information helps copyright owners to track the uses of their works on-line. The importance of the technological protection provisions has been reinforced by the growing use of contracts to regulate the use of digital works on-line.With on-line contracts, copyright users are often led via such contracts through a series of on-line screens that require them to click ‘yes’ to proceed. In clicking ‘yes’, the user might agree to the terms of access, such as that they will not copy, print or loan the work, give it to someone else, or read it aloud, which would be unacceptable in an analogue world.

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In effect, the increasing use of on-line contracts alters the nature of the relationship between copyright owners and users, and thus the role and function of copyright law itself. The use of contracts, particularly when combined with technological protection measures, increases the control that copyright owners are able to exert over copyright users. The combined effect of these protective measures marks a shift from copyright being a right to copy to copyright being a right of access. Another concern with on-line contracts relates to the impact they are having on the ability of the public to access and use electronic texts. More specifically, if contracts are able to override copyright defences, it will render them redundant. If this were permitted, the policy objectives of the copyright defences (such as ensuring that the public are able to freely access and use copyright works) would not be achieved. In thinking about the ongoing impact of copyright on electronic texts, it is important to take account of the ways in which copyright owners and readers have responded to recent developments in copyright law. Copyright owners are now becoming more flexible in their approach to the way copyright works are used. For example, while a single copy of an e-book bought for a library could previously only be borrowed by one reader at a time (like a printed book), recent arrangements have seen libraries negotiate, at no extra cost, unrestricted use of e-books for multiple borrowers at the same time. An initiative developed by consumers is the open archive movement, which represents a new approach to the communication of research findings and scholarly information, and was developed in response to the spiralling cost of scholarly journals. The aim is to create a public archive of scholarly works available freely to the academic community. One such initiative is the proposed public library of science. In response to the high cost of access to journal publications, scientists have attempted to create a public science on-line archive and have threatened to boycott scientific journals that refuse to make their materials available free of charge on centralised databases six months after their original publication. Copyright has evolved in response to the traditional technologies of book production in order to provide adequate control of intellectual property for both authors and publishers. The new digital environment will similarly create social and legal conflicts as well as its own future solutions.

BOOK BUSINESS

CHAPTER 6

Writers Robyn Sheahan-Bright and Craig Munro

The decades since the war have seen the increased professionalisation of the business of writing, including the formation of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) in 1963 and the advent of state-based writers’ centres. The exponential growth in literary awards, the study of Australian literature in universities, the growth of festivals and tours celebrating Australian writing, and the increase in the number of writing workshops and mentorships have all led to a much livelier and more diversified market for Australian writers and their books. Yet the average income of a full-time writer has not really increased, hovering in the vicinity of $12 000 per year. While some writers achieve wealth, acclaim and even notoriety, most rely on other income (often teaching) in order to continue writing. The first case-study in this chapter looks at the influence of writers’ centres, which grew out of the efforts of the ASA and the earlier Fellowship of Australian Writers. The ASA’s establishment led to initiatives that writers are now tempted to take for granted, such as Public Lending Rights (PLR), Educational Lending Rights (ELR), the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) and the Australian Copyright Council. As well as advocacy, the ASA offers contract advice, recommended pay scales and various information services.

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Other case-studies chart the development of the Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week, the National Book Council and associated awards, the Australian/Vogel Award and the involvement of government funding. The Literature Board assists dozens of writers each year, including a number of senior writers who receive Emeritus Fellowships. One such was Dorothy Hewett, famous for her literary and political commitment. The growth of Indigenous writing is also recognised as one of the real achievements of this period. (For the contribution of multicultural writers, see Sonia Mycak’s case-study in Chapter 9.)

Bestsellers and the pursuit of literary fame Writers such as Bryce Courtenay, Morris West, Colleen McCullough, Joy Dettman, Di Morrissey and Matthew Reilly have written blockbusters or saga novels, while others have achieved bestsellerdom with literary fiction. Tim Winton and Peter Carey, for example, sell mass-market quantities but also win major literary prizes, locally and internationally. Dorothy Porter’s verse thriller The Monkey’s Mask (1994) pushed poetry sales into the realms of fiction, and internationally acclaimed poet Les Murray scored a critical and sales success with his verse novel Fredy Neptune (2000). Children’s writers have increasingly featured in the bestseller lists (as outlined in Chapter 10). Recent decades have witnessed the advent of ‘crossover’ novels, selling in both the adult and the children’s markets, and also the rise of ‘faction’, or creative non-fiction, blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction in such works as Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish (2002). Media interviews on radio and television conducted by broadcasters such as Robert Dessaix (also an award-winning writer), Ramona Koval, Jill Kitson, Caroline Baum and Sandy McCutcheon have promoted a wider awareness of Australian writing. Writing by women has become a genre in its own right (see Chapter 9), with trailblazers such as Thea Astley, Janette Turner Hospital, Helen Garner, Marion Halligan, Olga Masters, Elizabeth Jolley, Beverley Farmer and Gail Jones. Film and television spin-offs have helped popularise literary classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, Come in Spinner by Dymphna Cusack and Florence James, Monkey Grip by Helen Garner, and more recently Christos

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Tsiolkas’s Loaded, Eliot Perlman’s Three Dollars and Robert Drewe’s The Shark Net. Doris Pilkington’s story of her Aboriginal mother’s epic escape, Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence, sold more than 50 000 copies after it was filmed by Phil Noyce in 2002.

The profile of Australian literature Awareness of the importance of research into Australian literature is only relatively recent. The first Chair in Australian Literature, at Sydney University, was established in 1960 and the journal Australian Book Review was founded in 1961, followed by Australian Literary Studies in 1963. The 1970s saw the formation of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL). More recently the teaching of creative writing in Australian universities has also contributed to the wider recognition of writers and writing.

International presence The growth of Australian Studies Centres overseas has increased global visibility, as have specialist journals such as the US-based Antipodes, and the work of long-time Literature Board New York publicist Selma Shapiro. The Canada–Australia Award (1976–94) was another long-running initiative, and there has been recent growth in translations and other overseas editions, encouraged by the Australia Council’s Visiting Publishers Program (VIP) and its Asia-Link Program. International success has included Patrick White’s 1973 Nobel Prize, David Malouf ’s 1996 International Impac Dublin Literary Award (the world’s richest, worth £100 000) for Remembering Babylon, the Orange Prize for Fiction to Kate Grenville’s The Idea of Perfection in 2001, Peter Carey’s two Bookers (in 1988 and 2001) for Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang, and Thomas Keneally’s 1982 Booker for Schindler’s Ark. Australians have won a number of Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes. David Malouf for The Great World in 1991, Alex Miller for The Ancestor Game in 1993, Peter Carey for Jack Maggs in 1998, Murray Bail for Eucalyptus in 1999, Peter Carey for True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001 and Richard Flanagan for Gould’s Book of Fish in 2002. Kate

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Grenville won the regional prize in 2006 for The Secret River. Les Murray has won a number of overseas poetry awards, including the prestigious T. S. Eliot Award (1996).The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry has been won by Judith Wright (1991), Les Murray (1998) and Peter Porter (2002), while Anna Funder’s first book, Stasiland, won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2004. Notable expatriates – among them Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries, Lily Brett and Robert Hughes – have also made Australian writing more visible internationally.

Australian writing awards In the immediate postwar era, Australia’s writers were honoured by a small number of national awards, including three that are still running many decades later: the Miles Franklin Literary Award for a published novel or play (since 1957), the Grace Leven Poetry Prize (since 1947) and the rather more eclectic Australian Literature Society Gold Medal (since 1928). There are now dozens of other awards but these three provide a continuous overview of national literary achievement for the past half-century. In 1974 another three significant awards were inaugurated: the Age Book of the Year Awards, the National Book Council Awards (which are now defunct – see Thomas Shapcott case-study below) and the Patrick White Award. Before looking in more detail at these awards, it is worth noting that the current plethora of premier’s awards can be confusing. There has been, for example, since 1979 a Christina Stead Prize (for fiction) as part of the raft of NSW Premier’s Awards and, since 1987, a quite separate Fellowship of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award for biography and memoir. Stead was herself the first recipient of the Patrick White Award in 1974. In the Victorian Premier’s Awards there is now a Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction and a Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction – a cosy and appropriate pairing considering their influential role in Australian literature for much of the twentieth century. Robert Drewe has the distinction of being the first writer to win the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian and West Australian premiers’ prizes for fiction, with his novel The Drowner (1996). Queensland boasts the Steele Rudd award, which is the only award dedicated

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to short-story collections. Winners have included Gillian Mears, Janette Turner Hospital, Matthew Condon, Nick Earls and Judith Clarke. (For details of the full range of awards currently available, see Australian Literary Awards and Fellowships, Thorpe, vol. 13, 2006. For awards to writers for young people, see also Chapter 10.) The Miles Franklin is an annual award ‘for a published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’ – a controversially interpreted definition in recent years. The award was established under the will of novelist Miles Franklin (1879–1954) who had struggled for recognition as a writer throughout most of her long and not always brilliant career.This, the most widely respected of all Australian literary prizes, has always gone to a novel in its almost fifty-year history. Thea Astley won the most Miles Franklins – four in all – the last in 2000 jointly with Kim Scott, while Peter Carey, Tim Winton and David Ireland have all won three times. Patrick White won it twice (for Voss in the inaugural year, 1957, and then for Riders in the Chariot in 1961), but thereafter he disqualified himself from entering so as not to dominate the winners’ circle in future years, as he certainly would have done. Other two-time winners were George Johnston (for My Brother Jack in 1964 and its sequel in 1969),Tom Keneally (1967 and 1968), Jessica Anderson (1978 and 1980), Rodney Hall (1982 and 1994) and Alex Miller (1993 and 2003). David Malouf won with The Great World in 1991 and other one-time winners include Xavier Herbert (Poor Fellow My Country, 1975), Randolph Stow (for his classic To the Islands, 1958), and Helen Darville/Demidenko (1995) who also won the ASAL Gold Medal that year. Frank Moorhouse’s magnificent League of Nations novel Grand Days (1993) was ruled ineligible on a narrow interpretation of the ‘Australian life’ requirement, but he finally tasted victory in 2001 with the sequel Dark Palace. Andrew McGahan’s win in 2005 for The White Earth has consolidated a career begun with his Vogel award in 1991. The Grace Leven Poetry Prize has been awarded since 1947 and the story behind this award might well provide the plot for a novel. Awarded annually for ‘the best volume of poetry’, the Grace Leven Prize was established under the will of shadowy poet ‘William Baylebridge’, the pen name of Charles William Blocksidge (1883–1942) whose family were prominent in Brisbane real estate. A World War I veteran and

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a contradictory mixture of recluse and sociable litterateur, Blocksidge maintained an air of reticence about himself and used his private income to publish his own books. He never married but harboured a flame for one Grace Leven, and his romantic memory of her lives on in this award. Blocksidge died of a heart attack in 1942 fighting a bushfire threatening his Blue Mountains home. The winners of the Grace Leven Poetry Prize are something of a rollcall of notable postwar poets, beginning with Nan McDonald in 1947 for Pacific Sea. (McDonald became a respected editor at Angus & Robertson before her untimely death from cancer in 1971.) Judith Wright’s second slim volume, the justly famous Woman to Man, took off the prize in 1949, while her Collected Poems 1942–70 won the 1971 award. In the 1950s, landmark winners included A. D. Hope for The Wandering Islands, James McAuley (A Vision of Ceremony) and Geoffrey Dutton’s Antipodes in Shoes. Among the 1960s winners were Thomas Shapcott’s first book, Time on Fire, and Les Murray and Geoffrey Lehmann’s The Ilex Tree, as well as Douglas Stewart’s Collected Poems 1936–67 and David Campbell’s Selected Poems 1942–68. The 1970s winners provided an extraordinarily powerful and diverse line-up, with Bruce Beaver (Letters to Live Poets), Rodney Hall, David Malouf, and selected or collected volumes from Gwen Harwood, John Blight, Robert Adamson and Bruce Dawe. Robert D. Fitzgerald won the Grace Leven three times (in 1952, 1959 and 1962), as did Geoffrey Lehmann, while Rhyll McMaster, Kevin Hart, Peter Porter and Robert Gray have all won this coveted award twice. Inaugurated way back in 1928 by the Australian Literature Society, the Gold Medal is awarded annually (since 1982 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature) for ‘an outstanding literary work or a major contribution to Australian literature’. Over its long history this award has gone to every possible genre, from novels and story collections to poetry volumes, non-fiction, a verse novel and even a screenplay. Patrick White was a three-time winner, while two of Brisbane’s finest sons, David Malouf and Rodney Hall, have each taken out the Gold Medal twice. The Age Book of the Year awards have honoured a distinguished list of writers since 1974, covering fiction as well as non-fiction. Elizabeth Jolley and Peter Carey have won it three times and Thea Astley twice.

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The National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Awards for Australian Literature also started in 1974 but were discontinued after the 1997 award. Peter Carey was a three-time winner of the ‘Banjo’, while other notable fiction winners included Frank Moorhouse for The Electrical Experience, Christopher Koch for The Year of Living Dangerously, Murray Bail for Homesickness and Olga Masters for The Home Girls. The non-fiction winners were equally impressive, including Geoffrey Serle for From Deserts the Prophets Come and John Monash, Harry Gordon’s Eyewitness History of Australia, Kevin Gilbert’s Living Black, Albert Facey’s A Fortunate Life, Bernard Smith’s The Boy Adeodatus, Brenda Niall’s Martin Boyd and David Marr’s Patrick White. Poetry winners included Les Murray (with the wonderfully tantalising Lunch and Counter Lunch), Dimitris Tsaloumas (The Observatory, in dual text Greek and English) and Alan Wearne (The Nightmarkets). The Patrick White Award was established by Patrick White in 1974. With generosity and foresight, he used the rich purse from his 1973 Nobel Prize for literature to set up a trust to provide an award each year to ‘a writer who has been highly creative over a long period, but has not received adequate recognition for their work’. The recipients of this award constitute Australian writing’s ‘quiet achievers’: Christina Stead, David Campbell, John Blight, Sumner Locke Elliott, Gwen Harwood, Randolph Stow, Bruce Dawe, Dal Stivens, Bruce Beaver, Marjorie Barnard, Rosemary Dobson, Judah Waten, John Morrison,William HartSmith, Roland Robinson, Thea Astley, Robert Gray, David Martin, Peter Cowan, Amy Witting, Dimitris Tsaloumas, Elizabeth Riddell, Elizabeth Harrower,Vivian Smith, Alma de Groen, Gerald Murnane,Thomas Shapcott, Geoff Page, Tom Hungerford, Janette Turner Hospital and Nancy Phelan.

Preserving the heritage of writers and their books Bookshop shelves are always filled to overflowing with a dazzling array of recently published books. There has been, however, a decline in the recognition of earlier Australian writers and their works. Nicholas Jose has commented that most Australian literary texts now being studied are only five to ten years old. He and a group of others are hoping to develop a ‘Norton-like’ anthology of Australian literature with support

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from Allen & Unwin. Other initiatives such as the Academy Editions of Australian Literature (UQP) and the Halstead Press ‘Classics’ series, together with on-line ventures such as Project Gutenberg of Australia, have had similar aims. Australian writers, including Indigenous writers, at the beginning of the new millennium are demonstrating more interest in their own heritage than ever before, keen to demonstrate their value to their readers both here and overseas. NOTE ON SOURCES AustLit:The Resource for Australian Literature: http://www.austlit.edu.au; Australian Literary Awards and Fellowships, vol. 13, Port Melbourne, Thorpe, 2006; Margaret Isaacs, Linda Emmett and Jean P. Whyte, Libraries and Australian Literature: A Report on the Representation of Creative Writing in Australian Libraries, Melbourne, Ancora Press, 1988; Nicholas Jose, ‘A Shelf of Our Own’, Australian Book Review, November 2005, no. 276, pp. 25–29; Project Gutenberg of Australia: http://www.gutenberg.net.au/

Case-study:Writers Centres ROBYN SHEAHAN-BRIGHT The provision of services for writers is a relatively recent development. Although there has been an Australian Journalists Association (now part of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance) since 1923 and a Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) since 1928, the two main professional organisations for writers are more recent. The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) was established in 1963 and has been responsible for such key initiatives as the Australian Copyright Council and the Copyright Agency Limited. The ASA has also lobbied tirelessly on issues such as rates of pay and recommended standard contracts. The Australian Writers Guild (AWG), representing mainly film writers, was established in 1962 and has campaigned recently on digital rights protection and moral rights legislation. The FAW, however, has maintained its non-professional structure, with state branches as well as a national body. This branch structure undoubtedly helped bring about the state-based writers centres which proliferated during the 1990s. Each centre was funded by the Literature Board of the Australia Council with matching state support, and their committees of

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management invariably included FAW representation. The provision of professional development from the tertiary and TAFE sectors has also grown, to the extent that a national network of tertiary creative writing courses now exists. There are other national organisations that have promoted writing, such as the (now defunct) National Book Council (NBC) and the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBC), but this case-study focuses on the relatively recent phenomenon of writers centres. Although these were initially funded by the Literature Board, beginning with the SA Writers Centre in 1986, state funding now dominates the mix and only one writers centre per state may apply. There are currently eight state- or territory-based centres: in South Australia, Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Other countries have individual writers centres, but the networking potential of Australia’s state-based centres is unique. To a large extent they have invented themselves, becoming hugely successful in the process. Despite this, they have been somewhat hampered by their economic, geographic and even political circumstances. Though centre coordinators met annually from 1991 to 2000 to discuss joint approaches to programming and advocacy issues, joint initiatives can be a problem because of competing state and national interests. From the beginning there was confusion about the purpose of writers centres, even among those who fought hard to establish them. There was certainly the expectation that centres would operate as a coordinating body of some sort, but exactly what they would coordinate was not so easily defined. Their brief was to run courses and provide writers with information, and there was much discussion about how writers would actually use a centre’s physical space. Writers centres would also provide a home to other less fortunate organisations, developing strong links on a local, state and national level. They have also lobbied on behalf of writers and even been rather entrepreneurial. (The Queensland centre, for example, trialled an employment service for writers.) They have organised festivals, coordinated tours and become publishers themselves to produce handbooks and directories. Initially there was confusion about which writers the centres would cater for. The Literature Board’s 1991 handbook stated that centres would meet the needs of non-professional writers. Now there is general agreement that

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they should meet the needs of professional writers as well. A ‘professional’ might be defined as someone who earns money from writing, or someone who spends most of the working week engaged in writing, or it might include those who simply regard themselves as writers. With the recent development of creative writing courses in universities, this question of definition has become even more pertinent. In order to assist emerging writers and established or ‘professional’ writers, the state-based centres face real challenges in determining how their services should be allocated, and how new membership should be targeted. Despite the continuing popularity of the centres themselves, almost nothing has been written about this phenomenon. Many beginning writers have received the necessary impetus to enter the ranks of the professionals via workshops, mentoring or appraisal services offered by the centres. However, centres can provide only very limited physical space for writers, especially in states such as Queensland or Western Australia. This has led to both unrealistic expectations and outright animosity in areas where regional issues are paramount and where state-based centres hope to provide quiet spaces in which a writer can work. To further complicate matters of definition, several regional writers centres delivering local services have developed. New South Wales now has the largest regional network (Litlink), encompassing the Booranga Riverina Writers Centre at Charles Sturt University, the Broken Hill Writers Centre, the Central West Writers Centre, the Hunter Writers Centre, the New England Writers Centre, the Northern Rivers Writers Centre,Varuna Writers Centre and the South Coast Writers Centre. Most of these are attached to regional universities and thus receive institutional funding and in-kind support.This model allows for considerable support in terms of accommodation, staffing and service delivery, though they are also funded by state allocations, putting more pressure on the already limited pool of funding. The annual Byron Bay Writers Festival has been hosted by such a regional centre. The WA State Literature Centre (so named to distinguish it from two regional centres that have begun calling themselves writers centres) also has a regional ‘sub-office’ at Broome to promote writing activities and advocacy in the Kimberley and Pilbara. Regional centres like this have not as yet been set up in Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT.

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Several regional writers retreats actually predate the establishment of writers centres. Only one of these – Varuna – has been recognised by the Literature Board for program funding. The Varuna Writers Centre at Katoomba is owned and operated by the Eleanor Dark Foundation Ltd and offers residencies to up to five Australian writers at a time, as well as a variety of mentorship programs, courses and public events. In Western Australia two other literary centres also predate the writers centre movement, and are administered voluntarily by the FAW: Katharine Susannah Prichard House and Tom Collins House, now both called writers centres although neither receives state or federal funding except for projects. Several centres devoted to promoting writing and illustration for young people have been established too. Dromkeen Museum of Australian Children’s Literature was founded in 1973, followed by the Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, the Australian Youth Literature Centre in Melbourne, Nutcote in Sydney, the May Gibbs Trust based in Adelaide and Books Illustrated in Melbourne. These all promote writing for young people and sponsor mentorships and workshops. The remarkable aspect of all these developments is that the initial funding allocations to writers centres contained little advice or coherent expectation of how these bodies were to be structured or how they would relate to existing bodies such as the ASA, the NBC, the AWG, and theatre and film companies, not to mention the publishing industry. This is hardly surprising, since the various parties involved in the writing industry include a complex mix of potential partners, many of whom have conflicting interests in relation to publishers, funding bodies, writers, libraries and readers. If, as Stuart Glover has maintained, ‘there is a compelling argument for the generation of coherent national and state government policies in the area of literature and publishing’, it is also worth noting that there are fundamental differences between how the publishing industry views writing and how funding bodies conceive of it. Australian publishers may wish to support the notion of developing a cultural industry approach but are also forced to make market-oriented decisions, operating as they do in a small market with an overconcentration of international publishers. Another essential ingredient in this already volatile mixture is the ‘audience’ – the readers of Australian-originated product. The Australia

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Council now funds programs such as audience development, and state arts ministries support promotional and marketing grants. Some of the most influential writing promotions have been organised not by membership-driven organisations but by bookshops which organise regular launches, literary lunches and dinners. Writers now have access to a greater range of support mechanisms than ever before, despite the downturn in the economic fortunes of publishing occasioned by factors such as the GST. Australian writers are far more visible than they have ever been and there are exciting new opportunities for individual and collaborative work available to them with the growth of the technological sector. The market has begun to recognise as well the enormous potential of Indigenous and culturally diverse writing. Writers centres have discussed joint marketing campaigns and national touring programs but these have tended to be limited initiatives. Much more is possible. This dynamic structure of linked centres could become a force for national change, with all the various writing organisations working together to develop national policy and ensure strategic growth into the future. NOTE ON SOURCES Writers centre newsletters; Australia Council, Support for the Arts Handbook, Surry Hills, Australia Council, 2002; Brian Forte, ‘Writing Centred’, in Kate Foord (ed.), Publish: A Writer’s Handbook, ACT Arts Council, 1991; Stuart Glover, ‘Creative Nation – Where Now for Publishing and Literature Policy?’, Imago, vol. 7, no. 1, March 1995, pp. 54–58; Libraries and Australian Literature, Melbourne, Ancora Press, 1988; Irina Dunn, Handbook for Australian Writers, Allen & Unwin, 1999, 2002; Hilary Beaton (ed.), Word for Word, Queensland Writers Centre, 2000; NSW Writers Centre Journals Directory, NSW Writers Centre, 2000.

Case-study: Indigenous Writers CRAIG MUNRO As far as is known, the first Aboriginal writer to have a book published in Australia was David Unaipon, whose Native Legends appeared in Adelaide about 1929. A national award for unpublished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers is administered annually, in his honour, by the

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University of Queensland Press (UQP) and funded by the state government. UQP also publishes in book form the winning entry, regardless of genre. After David Unaipon, it was several decades before the next book by an Indigenous writer appeared. We Are Going, a collection of poems by Kath Walker, later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was published by Jacaranda Press in 1964. Before European invasion, hundreds of individual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages existed across what was to become the colonised entity of Australia. It has taken the virus-like spread of the English language only a couple of hundred years to systematically surplant many of these Aboriginal languages. In the wake of such wholesale dispossession of language and culture, English has become inevitably the lingua franca for black and white inhabitants alike.With such a multiplicity of original tongues, however, as well as adaptive Kriols, Australia’s Indigenous peoples have always been attuned to a wide range of linguistic styles and nuances. In addition, Aboriginal English is now a recognised form and a powerful new voice in fiction, poetry and drama. Aboriginal languages demand a high degree of linguistic facility and their traditional song-poetry constitutes a rich and diverse literature far older than any remnant of Greek civilisation. Yet Aboriginal songpoems can also incorporate events of topical significance. One such song sequence describes the crash of a US B-24 bomber – Little Eva – in December 1941 in the Gulf country of northern Australia, where Aboriginal stockmen were instrumental in searching for the crew. Celebrated from the Aboriginal searchers’ point of view, the song sequence dramatically recreates the crash and the search, and has been performed in at least three different language versions. From the 1950s and 1960s, greater Indigenous involvement in political debate and protest meant using the media – including books – to define a new black cultural expression. Poems like Kath Walker’s muchanthologised ‘We Are Going’ raised the social awareness of generations of Australian schoolchildren about black–white issues. It was Aboriginal poetry, rather than fiction, that pioneered the field of Indigenous writing in the second half of the twentieth century. Jack Davis’ The First-Born and other poems was published in 1970 by Angus & Robertson and Kevin Gilbert’s End of Dream-Time in 1971 by Island Press, followed later by

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the work of others such as Lionel Fogarty, Maureen Watson, Lisa Bellear and Samuel Wagan Watson (son of novelist Sam Watson). Fogarty has published a number of volumes since Kargun, with Cheryl Buchanan, in 1980. Jacaranda Press continued to publish Oodgeroo’s poetry while other publishers of Indigenous poetry include Hyland House, Penguin, UQP and a host of smaller imprints. Although the growth of Aboriginal activism in the 1960s was paralleled by the development of Indigenous literary expression in English, it was not until the 1980s that Aboriginal publishing began with the formation of BlackBooks, a Sydney Aboriginal cooperative which later specialised in distribution. In 1987 Fremantle Arts Centre Press (FACP) published My Place which became the most popular book ever by an Aboriginal writer. Its author was 35-year-old writer and artist Sally Morgan. Her search to uncover the secret stories behind her family’s Aboriginal identity became an instant bestseller. In 1999 FACP released a special edition to celebrate half a million sales. There has been some controversy within the Aboriginal community about such conspicuous success, and about the book’s influence as the representative Aboriginal text on many school syllabuses. Its audience – as with most black books – is predominantly white readers. My Place appealed strongly to the white conscience and thereby contributed to a wider appreciation of the need for reconciliation. In her study DhuuluuYala (To Talk Straight): Publishing Indigenous Literature (2003), Anita Heiss asks why it was Morgan’s story – and not some other, more hard-hitting Aboriginal life story – which achieved this bestselling status: ‘My Place . . . was not confrontational to the white–mainstream way of perceiving Aboriginal Australia, [highlighting instead] one family’s denial of their Aboriginal heritage’. By the late 1990s, the now Professor Morgan was director of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Indigenous History and the Arts. She has published other books, including a number for children, and her vividly colourful artworks are also widely known and reproduced. Morgan’s publisher, FACP, had earlier published the hugely successful white battler’s memoir – the ironically titled A Fortunate Life (1981) by Albert Facey. FACP’s first book by an Aboriginal author was Paddy Roe’s Gularabulu: Stories from West Kimberley in 1983, followed by Reading the

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Country in 1984. Their other Indigenous authors include Alice Nannup, Butcher Joe Nangun and the award-winning novelist Kim Scott. Another West Australian publisher is usually credited with being the country’s first Indigenous publishing company. Magabala Books opened for business in Broome in the remote Kimberley region of West Australia in 1987. As the case-study on Magabala in Chapter 4 describes in more detail, this was very much a community-based initiative, with ongoing funding from both the West Australian government and the Australia Council. There are now several publishers with significant Indigenous lists including two that are regionally located and Aboriginal-run: Magabala and IAD Press.The latter is the publishing arm of the Alice Springs-based Institute for Aboriginal Development, a research and adult-education centre which began publishing language materials in the 1970s. IAD’s books are by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors as well as nonIndigenous specialists on aspects of Aboriginal language, art, history and culture, and include Dinny Japuljarri’s Long Time, Olden Time: Aboriginal Accounts of Northern Territory History (1993) and Melissa Lucashenko’s Too Flash (2002). Magabala and its sister press IAD have Indigenous management committees, though both have employed white staff as well. Other publishers of Indigenous work include Aboriginal Studies Press (part of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), drama publisher Currency Press (featuring several plays by Jack Davis) and the University of Queensland Press. Queensland has the largest Indigenous population of any Australian state and since the late 1980s, UQP has actively developed Indigenous creative writing, centred on its annual David Unaipon Award for unpublished Aboriginal writers. Award winners, along with a selection of highly commended entrants, work closely with UQP editorial staff to develop their manuscripts for publication. Numbered among these authors are the award’s inaugural winner Graeme Dixon, Doris Pilkington (of Rabbit-Proof Fence fame), long-time activist Joe McGuinness, popular story-teller Herb Wharton, scholar Eve Fesl and novelist Alexis Wright. Until recently the senior editor with responsibility for the Unaipon Award and UQP’s Indigenous list was Sue Abbey. In the mid-1990s this list was supervised and edited by a former Magabala trainee, Sandra Phillips.

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Remarkably, Sandra was then the only Aboriginal editor employed in ‘mainstream’ book publishing in Australia and later managed Aboriginal Studies Press in Canberra. In a survey of Aboriginal publishing in Australia 1988–98, Louise Poland reported that in the late 1990s there were only six Indigenous staff employed full-time in the publishing industry. Three were at Magabala in Broome, two were at IAD in Alice Springs and one was in Canberra. In an interview with Louise Poland, Sandra Phillips talked about the future of Aboriginal publishing. She stressed the ‘hard developmental work’ publishers – black or white – had to put in with Indigenous writers. For her it was also vitally important for new writers to have Aboriginal mentors and role models. ‘Indigenous writers who do get published need support and encouragement to engage and communicate regularly about the process so they don’t feel disempowered.’ Not only do they need to be centrally involved in that publishing process, but ‘non-Indigenous people involved in the publishing of Indigenous work also need to be sensitised to the relevant issues’. Aboriginal Studies Press (ASP), like IAD, has developed from being the publishing arm of an Aboriginal Studies institute, circulating the research of predominantly white scholars, to publishing in areas such as biography and memoir, education, health, history, law and social anthropology. It also features an extensive array of film and video productions, as well as recordings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music. In 1994 ASP published The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History, Society and Culture (1994) in two volumes, totalling 1340 pages. Edited by the then Director of ASP, David Horton, the Encyclopaedia was also issued on CD-ROM with the addition of sound and video. Most of the output from the four key publishers of Indigenous writing is consumed within the education systems, from primary through to tertiary level. One of the new Indigenous publishers is Black Ink Press, a communitybased group in North Queensland which trains and mentors emerging writers and artists to create illustrated books, especially for young Indigenous readers. In the last decade, mainstream publishers, including multinationals, have been adding Aboriginal authors to their lists and marketing them

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alongside international authors. Other publishers of Aboriginal authors include highly commercial firms like Allen & Unwin and Penguin (which published Sam Watson’s powerful novel Kadaitcha Sung in 1990). In the 1990s Oxford Australia produced an 800-page Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture which included a section on Aboriginal literature. There is clearly a general – as well as an educational – market for the works of Aboriginal writers, ranging widely as they do from illustrated children’s books to the more politically engaging plays, novels and life stories. In the 2005 NSW Premier’s Awards, Samuel Wagan Watson’s Smoke Encrypted Whispers (UQP) received the prestigious Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and was also voted the overall Book of the Year. At the same time Ruby Langford Ginibi was honored with a special award. Publishing Indigenous work requires a special collaboration between writers and the predominantly white production process (see Chapter 7 cast-study). The black presses are few in number and have only limited resources for marketing and promotion yet it is still the smaller presses which consistently feature the work of Indigenous Australians. NOTE ON SOURCES Anita Heiss, Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Publishing Indigenous Literature, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2003; Craig Munro, ‘In Black and White: Indigenous Australian Writers and Their Publishers’, LOGOS (UK), 2001, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 103–7; Martin Duwell and R. M. W. Dixon (eds), Little Eva at Moonlight Creek and other Aboriginal song poems, St Lucia, UQP, 1994 (a sequel to their earlier anthology The Honey-Ant Men’s Love Song and other Aboriginal song poems); Adam Shoemaker, Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929–88, St Lucia, UQP, 1989 (text also available on-line from ANU E Press, Canberra); Sandra Phillips (interviewed by Louise Poland, 1997), ‘Publishing Indigenous Writers’, in Craig Munro (ed.), UQP: The Writer’s Press 1948–98, St Lucia, UQP, 1998. Anthologies of Aboriginal writing include: Archie Weller and Colleen Glass (eds), Us Fellas: An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing, Perth, Artlook Books, 1987; Kevin Gilbert (ed.), Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, Ringwood, Penguin, 1988; Jack Davis, et al, Plays from Black Australia, Sydney, Currency Press, 1989; Jack Davis, et al (eds), Paperbark: A Collection of Black Australian Writings, St. Lucia, UQP, 1990; Bruce Pascoe (ed.), Aboriginal Short Stories, Apollo Bay, Pascoe Publishing, 1990; Roger Bennett (ed.), Voices from the Heart: Contemporary Aboriginal Poetry from Central Australia, Alice Springs, IAD, 1995; Kerry Reed-Gilbert (ed.), Message Stick: Contemporary Aboriginal Writing, IAD, 1997; Alexis Wright (ed.), Take Power . . . An Anthology of Writings Celebrating 20 Years of Land Rights in Central Australia, Alice Springs, Jukurrpa Books, 1998; Rachel Bin Salleh (ed.), Holding Up the Sky: Aboriginal Women Speak, Broome, Magabala Books, 1999; Anne

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Brewster, et al (eds), Those Who Remain Will Always Remember, Fremantle, FACP, 2000; Josie Douglas (ed.), Untreated: Poems by Black Writers, Alice Springs, Jukurrpa Books, 2001; Anita Heiss (ed.), Life in Gadigal Country, Sydney, Gadigal Information Service, 2002.

Case-study: Festival Big Top RUTH STARKE In 1964 Australian expatriate writer Alan Moorehead gave the opening address at Adelaide Writers’ Week and disconcerted everybody by announcing that he didn’t believe in writers’ conferences. Writing was a lonely job, he said, and he advised his colleagues to avoid publishers’ parties, television appearances and meeting other authors. Fortunately for Writers’ Week and all the similar festivals that have sprung up in its wake, his advice has been consistently ignored. During its 45-year history, virtually every Australian writer of consequence has appeared at Adelaide Writers’Week and, particularly in the last thirty years, they have been joined by significant international names. It is also a week when the national literary media gather in Adelaide.The combined benefits for everyone are obvious. In fact, the high profile that Australian writers now enjoy is attributable in no small part to the network of literary festivals around the country. Much of this case-study focuses on Adelaide Writers’ Week because it remains the pre-eminent literary festival.Those which came afterwards did not significantly deviate from the blueprint it laid down during its first twenty-five years. Book launches, bookshops, author signings, readings, panel discussions, forums and seminars, meet-the-author interviews, international guests, keynote addresses and refreshment sales were all introduced at Adelaide. The week’s events are now held under canvas in the gardens opposite the Festival Centre, and audiences come and go as they please, free of charge. As a consequence, the crowd ranges across all ages and every demographic, from university students and office workers catching a lunch-time session to parents with babies in pushers and librarians on holiday who stagger home laden with new books. Attendance figures are difficult to estimate and range from 35 000 to over 90 000. Whatever the numbers, nobody denies that at both Melbourne and Adelaide, and indeed at litfests across the country, the crowds

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and the book sales grow bigger each year.Tent sessions in Adelaide – and there were over ninety of them in 2000 – routinely attract audiences of over 1000, and frequently double that for big international names. In 1988 a record 1500 crowded the main tent to hear Peter Carey: it was the first time an Australian writer had attracted the largest audience. Many now claim that Writers’ Week, originally established to allow Australia’s far-flung authors to get together and discuss their work and other problems, should more accurately be called Readers’ Week. This change in focus is replicated in the other major Australian literary festivals and is a direct result of increased publisher involvement. Only a minute proportion of the thousands of new titles which flood the market every year are ever reviewed, and relatively few authors gain any media exposure at all. In addition, they must compete with the vast quantities of imported British and American books. In such a competitive climate, it is not surprising that publishers are keen for their authors to occupy any and every public platform. It was not always so, however, and publishers were slow to realise the commercial possibilities of the literary festival. In April 1961 the Writers’Week committee wrote to half of the forty or so members of the Australian Book Publishers Association seeking financial help in order to bring writers to Adelaide; by the deadline in July only two replies had been received. The majority of writers travelled to Adelaide at their own expense; the luckier ones were partly subsidised by either the Festival or the Commonwealth Literary Fund. In 1966, when the normal travel subsidy for a Queensland writer was £25, Jacaranda Press agreed to provide £50 for Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) to travel to Adelaide, but this was unusual. One of the early organisers, writer and poet Ian Mudie, was also the publishing manager for Rigby, and throughout the 1960s he continued to push for more publisher involvement in the Festival but without much success. Another difficulty was the lack of a suitable venue – sessions were held in university lecture theatres – and the problem of actually obtaining, organising, displaying and selling the books. Besides, who was to buy these newly launched books? With the exception of the open-air poetry and prose readings, the public were not initially encouraged to attend Writers’ Week. It was the move to an outdoor venue in 1976 that really broke down the barriers and brought interested parties together. A book

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tent was introduced to display and sell the works of featured authors, and publishers were encouraged to hold launches. Rigby, always a loyal supporter, became the Week’s prime sponsor in 1984 and other publishers – Pan,William Collins, Sphere, Penguin, Heinemann – contributed to the cost of bringing their authors to Adelaide and bought advertising space in various Festival publications. The financial commitment was not large but it did increase industry recognition of Writers’Week.The number of books launched increased also: from three in 1972 to thirteen in 1978 to twenty-nine in 1986. City bookstores arranged signing sessions and authors were interviewed on radio and television. A second marquee and parallel sessions were introduced in 1986. The sessions in the main tent were aimed at a general audience of readers, while in the smaller tent the sessions related more to the business of literature.The event now attracted not only writers and large numbers of enthusiastic readers but also increasing numbers of publishers, editors and agents, many of them from overseas, who used Writers’ Week to launch new books, make and maintain contacts, and extend their knowledge of the current literary scene. In this respect, Writers’ Week differed from the other literary festivals that had sprung up around the country. By 1988 they included Canberra’s National Word Festival; Fremantle Arts Centre Writers’ Week, held as part of the Festival of Perth; Hobart’s Salamanca; Melbourne Writers’ Festival, inaugurated in 1986 as part of the Spoleto Festival; and Brisbane’s Warana Writers’ Week. All were on a smaller scale than Adelaide’s, but all had similar aims: to raise the profile of Australian literature, to create and maintain new interest in writing, and to allow writers to meet readers as well as other writers. Helen Garner has observed that in the 1980s literary festivals lost their ‘festiveness’ and turned into just another day’s work for the participating writer. Carmen Callil, founder of the Virago imprint, told an audience at the 1992 Melbourne Writers’ Festival that it was now almost obligatory for writers to become ‘performance artists’ if their books were to sell. It was, she said, ‘a crucial change in publishing – much more important than working with chains of booksellers or anything else’. In his opening address at Writers’Week 1998, Robert Dessaix lamented that authors must not only write good books but ‘figure skate’ as well in order to sell

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them. Increasingly, a writer is on the program because a publisher has paid the associated costs. A bookshop reading can sell up to 150 books but an appearance by a personable writer at a literary festival can triple that figure. At Writers’ Week 1998, Booker Prize-winner Arundhati Roy sold over 1000 copies of The God of Small Things, 400 of them on the opening Sunday when a record audience of 2500 packed in to hear her speak. There are now so many literary festivals that some publishers are reconsidering their financial involvement, particularly in the regional and metropolitan festivals. But from the point of view of almost everybody else, festivals remain very popular. When our first festival began in 1960, literary writing was not only practised by a rarefied few but it was read by comparatively few, too. Today, Australian literature has moved from the back to the front of the bookshop. NOTE ON SOURCES Pamela Bone, ‘A Reader Finds Her Voice’, Age, 25 October 1997; ‘Carmen Callil in Conversation with Jill Kitson’, 24 Hours, November 1992; Helen Garner,‘Sing forYour Supper’, in True Stories, Melbourne, Text Publishing, 1996; Luke Slattery, ‘Booked for Stardom’, Weekend Australian, Review, 16–17 March 1996; Jane Sullivan, ‘The Big Book Squeeze’, Age Extra, 22 November 1997; Ruth Starke, Writers, Readers and Rebels: Upfront and Backstage at Australia’s Top Literary Festival, Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1998; Derek Whitelock, Festival! The Story of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, self-published, Adelaide, 1980.

Case-study: National Book Council THOMAS SHAPCOTT In the two decades following the Second World War, the promotion of books in Australia was at best spasmodic and uncertain. A few literary prizes became established, notably the annual Miles Franklin Award and the Grace Leven Poetry Prize. In the 1940s and 1950s the Sydney Morning Herald provided some well-publicised prizes for fiction and poetry, and the recipients (who included Ruth Park, Rosemary Dobson and, jointly, Charmian Clift and George Johnston) certainly benefited in terms of recognition. It was not until the Literature Board of the Australia Council was

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founded in 1973, taking over the modest role of the Commonwealth Literary Fund, that major grants to writers – to produce new work – provided the stimulus that would, in the following decades, produce books that altered the landscape of Australian literary publishing.The Literature Board, from the outset, also sought to promote Australian books and writing. The major initial recipient of funding for promotion was the newly formed National Book Council (NBC), and it received substantial backing for another twenty years from the Literature Board. Initially the NBC promoted an Australian Book Week through libraries, schools and bookshops, with posters, brochures and leaflets endorsing literary achievements. It also introduced the annual NBC Book Awards which innovatively included non-fiction titles among the eligible categories. Over the succeeding decades the NBC encouraged a wide range of promotional activities which helped to create a groundswell of interest and response. By the mid-1980s Australian writing had begun to attract increasing interest from overseas. In 1983 the NBC subsidised an expensive television campaign to ‘Buy Australian Books’ which was highly successful in generating sales for certain targeted books. The Literature Board itself made some individual promotional ventures, including a major subsidy to promote Xavier Herbert’s novel Poor Fellow My Country (1975). Probably the most successful promotional activities, however, were the annual NBC Book Awards. Although the Miles Franklin Award and the NBC Awards (later called the Banjo Awards) retained a certain pre-eminence, in the early 1980s the New South Wales premier, Neville Wran, initiated the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.These were soon followed by the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, the Western Australian Literary Awards, the South Australian Biennial Literary Awards (associated with the Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week) and, most recently, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.The proliferation of such awards, the high value of their prize money, and the immediate publicity they generated, combined to provide a sort of crest to the rising tide of awareness of a ‘literary renaissance’ in Australia. To capitalise on this, a number of multinational publishers established publishing and editorial offices in this country during the 1980s. The Australian/Vogel Literary Award for younger writers, which began in 1980, has been outstandingly successful in encouraging and

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marketing the work of new writers, a number of whom have become established as major writers, including Tim Winton, Kate Grenville and Andrew McGahan. Perhaps one of the most visible features of the success of this plethora of literary awards has been the promotional activity associated with them: major dinners and celebratory functions, invitations to the media, interviews and publicity opportunities. The Australian media now give space to writers, often new and emerging ones, with an alacrity that would have amazed their predecessors thirty or forty years ago. The weekly magazines produced by the Australian, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald regularly feature profiles of writers. Apart from the Vogel and the David Unaipon Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers, established in 1989, most of the literary awards are for published books. These are the ones that generate media interest.They involve submissions from publishers (and sometimes from literary agents and from authors themselves). There are two literary awards which do not invite applications but select a recipient through their own judging panels. These are the Patrick White Award, created by the author from his Nobel Prize winnings of 1973, and the Geraldine Pascall Award. The former is given to older writers of distinction whose work has not received adequate recognition. The latter is awarded to writers of various forms of arts journalism including book reviews. The NBC Banjo Awards ceased in 1997 after the National Book Council was disbanded. The various state literary awards, despite having seen the passage of premiers of various political persuasions, are continuing and even appear to be gaining in strength and prestige. The value of the prizes has crept up, more or less as a mark of inflation. Though these prizes now receive more publicity in their own states than elsewhere, they provide a general benefit in that they do generate a sense of activity and achievement in literature. Actual across-the-counter book sales as a result of literary awards are perhaps a less quantifiable result. At a more grassroots level, there has always been a proliferation of minor prizes and awards, usually for unpublished work, largely poems and short stories. The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, like the Booker Prize, attracts considerable international interest and has been won by a number of Australian authors, including David Malouf, Peter Carey and, most recently, Richard Flanagan.

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Literary prizes are only one means of promoting Australian writing and generating interest and awareness in its achievements. Writers’ festivals have proliferated too, and continue to attract large audiences. As new technologies evolve, it can be anticipated that other means of promotion will develop. In that sense, it is unfortunate that the NBC, as an organisation concerned with the promotion of literature, was not able to continue. One of its later activities was the inauguration of a Manuscript Assessment Service, using anonymous writers as assessors. The constituency of the NBC – publishers, booksellers, librarians, authors and book-lovers – was unique. When in the late 1990s the Australia Council withdrew funding support, however, the NBC was not able to maintain the same level of funding and commitment.

C ase-study:The Australian/Vogel Literary Award TESS BRADY The Australian/Vogel award, administered by Allen & Unwin Australia, is a privately sponsored literary award which has been operating for twentyfive years. Now worth $20 000, the award guarantees publication of the winning manuscript, which must be an unpublished manuscript by an Australian writer who is not more than thirty-five at the time of entry. The Vogel is popularly seen as an award for new novelists, but entries can include a work of fiction for adults or children, a work of non-fiction such as a biography or history, or a work of verse. Further, and this is often forgotten, the writer can have been published previously as long as the entered manuscript itself has not been published. The award originated with Niels Stevns, a specialist bread manufacturer and an immigrant from Denmark who wanted to give something back to his adopted country. Stevns approached Peter Ward, then literary editor of the Australian, with his idea of sponsoring a literary award. As luck would have it, Ward was in the process of negotiating with Allen & Unwin’s publisher Patrick Gallagher over a book proposal of his own. It was perfect timing all round, as Gallagher at that time was contemplating moving into fiction publishing. The result was a three-way partnership between Stevns of Vogel Bread, Ward of the Australian and Gallagher of Allen & Unwin.

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The award began in 1980 with prize money of $10 000 and an age limit of thirty. The age limit was raised to thirty-five in 1982 and the prize money has gradually increased. In 1992 it was $15 000 with royalties on top of that. Inaugural judges were Barbara Jeffries, Barrett Reid and Nancy Keesing.The number of judges has increased to four over the years because of the increasing workload. The judges are rotated, with a new judge joining the panel each year. For the first award 169 entries were received, most arriving close to the June 30 deadline. This late rush of entries caused an initial nervousness in the award’s administration, but it has now become a characteristic of the award. In 1980 the average age of the writers was twenty-eight and 20 per cent were women. Just seven manuscripts were considered potentially publishable and these made up that year’s ‘long short list’. This preliminary short list is created in the judging process but is not usually made public, and it lists those manuscripts to be read more carefully. Getting onto this list is important for a young writer, as Allen & Unwin often sends out those works to readers for publication appraisal. Such appraisal is parallel to, and not part of, the judging process, and it explains why some manuscripts that are not in the final publicised short list still receive publication by Allen & Unwin. More recently, writers on the long short list have been invited to a manuscript workshop at the University of Canberra organised by the university’s director of writing, Ron Miller. The first winning entry was Paul Radley’s Jack Rivers and Me. Sixteen years later, in1996, it was revealed that the novel had in fact been written by Paul’s uncle, Jack Radley. In 1980 young Paul did seem an unlikely author, but there was no suggestion of fraud at the time. Also short-listed that year were Archie Weller (whose The Day of the Dog was later published by Allen & Unwin), Clyde Jones, Ronald Allen, Suzanne Falkiner and Kerry O’Rourke. O’Rourke’s writing was deemed too experimental to publish as an extract in the Australian, the custom for short-listed entries, and as a result his name has fallen out of the collective memory. This was the only time the Australian exercised such censorship; subsequently they have published extracts of all short-listed entries. Since 1980 the prize has been awarded each year except for 1985 when the judges declined to make the award on the grounds that the

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standard of submissions was not high enough. Conditions have varied, judges have changed in a regular manner, controversy has raged, the relationship between the three partners has been stretched and taxed, Niels Stevns has died and his son Alan has generously continued his father’s sponsorship. Other interests have tried to buy into the award but have not been successful. In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, the award has grown in strength and reputation and now is unquestionably the most prestigious manuscript award for a young writer in Australia. Other manuscript awards have developed but no other award has challenged the prestige of the Vogel. Many young writing students eagerly submit their manuscripts to it. In addition, the Vogel is the most significant privately sponsored and run literary award in Australia. Its freedom from the necessary constraints of arts funding bodies may have allowed the award enough flexibility to survive the various challenges it has faced. At a time when private sponsorship in the arts is being encouraged and sought, the Australian/Vogel could provide a useful model. The award’s relationship with the Australian has in itself sparked debate, fuelled by rival newspapers and often centered on judging decisions. There has also been criticism, usually voiced in the press with the announcement of each year’s winners, that the award has no significant long-term cultural effect. Cries of ‘one book wonders’ are levelled against the past winners, but the evidence does not support this criticism. In the first twenty years of the award, 127 writers were winners, short-listed or highly commended. Well over half – seventy-four writers in all – have publications in the National Library, and thirty-eight of those have more than five listings, with twenty-two writers having ten or more publications – a significant publishing output. Two public scandals have been associated with the award, both breaking in 1996. The first, as mentioned above, was that Paul Radley did not write his winning manuscript. The second also concerns authorial identity but is more complex and has been much discussed in the media and elsewhere. A young woman calling herself Helen Demidenko and apparently of Ukrainian descent wrote a fictional work, The Hand that Signed the Paper, claiming it was based on the life story of a relative. Demidenko won the Australian/Vogel award in 1993 and later the Miles Franklin award.

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In 1995 it was revealed that she was Helen Darville and had no Ukrainian connections. Her parents were English immigrants.The novel was also controversial because it dealt with wartime anti-Semitism and there were claims of plagiarism as well. Perhaps because Darville/Demidenko’s work had been so highly praised, the revelations about her identity caused a public sensation and led to several book-length studies of the scandal. An official record of the award, Mixed Grain (2000), was edited and published by Allen & Unwin, with the inaugural winner, Paul/Jack Radley, removed. Jack Rivers and Me was, however, mentioned in Patrick Gallagher’s introduction: [The Vogel] was too good an opportunity to resist, and to have two such fine novels as Jack Rivers and Me and The Day of the Dog to start our fiction list was not only a guarantee of the continuing success of the award but a strong nudge to Allen & Unwin that there was great Australian fiction out there and we should be publishing it. The fact that occasional authors might not be all they seemed was part of the learning experience . . . NOTE ON SOURCES Tess Brady, ‘The Australian/Vogel Literary Award – a preliminary investigation into three myths’, TEXT, www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/text, vol. 6, no. 2, October 2002.

Case-study: Literature and the State STUART GLOVER Australian governments in the period since 1946 have significantly supported and shaped publishing and literary culture. By the end of the century, federal support included Public Lending Right, Book Bounty, book marketing programs, school library acquisition programs and marketing campaigns for books and book exporters.This was complemented by state government funding for literary organisations, publishing grants, and writers’ grants and prizes. Motivated by a mix of social, economic, cultural and education policy goals, these direct and indirect measures helped shape the output, circulation and status of Australian literature. Prior to the war, arts funding levels were modest, although literature was one of the first areas of government arts funding and regulation.

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Regulatory measures for literature had been in place before Federation, and thereafter the Commonwealth assumed control of copyright provisions that protected intellectual property’s economic value. The states inherited the colonial responsibility for defamation and obscenity. Development of Australian libraries was shared between the Commonwealth and the states, but was limited until the Munn–Pitt report in the 1930s. Following World War II there was increasing institutionalisation and professionalisation as well as support for artistic practice. The Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust from 1954 and the Australian Council for the Arts from 1968 (a precursor to the Australia Council) underwrote the expansion of arts infrastructure. By 2000, Australian governments across all three levels were spending more than $3700 million per year on culture, although literature and publishing made up only a small part, totalling just $17.3 million in the 1998–99 financial year. Library spending was, however, the largest single item of cultural expenditure, at $756 million. In addition, in 2000 there was a commitment to a one-off, threeyear $240 million package of initiatives to compensate the book industry for the effects of GST. There was, however, little attempt to coordinate the policy framework for the development and support of literary culture. There has been no national literature policy, nor any notable attempts to coordinate policy between the levels of government.

The Commonwealth Literary Fund and the Literature Board In 1939 the federal government restructured and expanded the Commonwealth Literary Fund (CLF) in response to lobbying from the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW). In its first period (1908–38) the CLF operated as a modest pension scheme for writers and their families. Former Labor Prime Minister J. H. Scullin called for an extension of CLF activities, arguing that ‘national sentiment created by literature – prose, poems, ballads and songs – has inspired people to great endeavours for the defence, progress and development of their country’. After the war, although the pension was continued, the number of writers’ fellowships grew. The list of writers who were CLF grant recipients over this period is impressive. It includes Xavier Herbert, Miles Franklin, Marjorie Barnard, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Dame Mary Gilmore, Jean Devanny,

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Judith Wright, Judah Waten, Kylie Tennant, Hal Porter, Thea Astley, Alan Marshall, Chris Koch,Thomas Kenneally, Nancy Cato, Les Murray, David Ireland, Frank Moorhouse and Charmian Clift. The effectiveness of the program was also impressive: between 1940 and 1966 almost nine out of every ten fellowship holders produced manuscripts. At the same time the intrusion of political input into decision making became a serious problem. Writers were reduced to the role of advisers who made recommendations to a parliamentary committee. As in the case of a grant to Judah Waten, this led to instances of state interference. There was a shift in the funding criterion from financial neediness (which characterised the pension scheme from 1908 to 1938) to the more mercurial one of ‘literary merit’, which resonates still in the Literature Board criterion of ‘excellence’. After the war, grants for the promotion and publication of Australian literature were offered for the first time. In the years 1939 to 1973, 159 of the 334 books assisted by the CLF were poetry titles. Angus & Robertson, as the largest Australian-owned publisher, was the largest recipient of subsidy, with 136 titles supported over the thirty-four years of the scheme. Only a small proportion of all Australian titles received a subsidy but the number grew as Australian publishing expanded through the 1940s to the 1970s. In the 1940s the CLF subsidised an average of 2.7 titles per year, growing to six per year in the 1950s and more than nineteen per year in the 1960s. In its final five years (1966 to 1972), CLF funding increased five-fold to reach $300 000, in line with an increased Commonwealth commitment to the arts. This led to the creation of the Literature Board in 1973 and the Australia Council under its own Act in 1975. Literature Board support followed the CLF model, concentrating on funding for individual authors. In 1973 more than 50 per cent of the Literature Board’s $1.19 million budget (nearly four times the size of the final CLF budget) was spent on individuals. By 2000–01, 53.7 per cent, or $2.29 million of the Board’s $4.26 million grant budget, was spent on individuals. These grants have mainly been used by writers to buy time to produce novels, plays or books of poems. It was rare, however, for grant funds to be the only form of writing-related income. Some authors, of course, owed more than others to government and

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the community by way of grants received. Considering that Les Murray has received $300 000 since the establishment of the Literature Board, it is perhaps surprising to find that he has been among the Board’s most severe critics. Early sallies on the Board by Peter Ryan and Max Harris objected to the very principle of writers’ grants, but Ken Methold in the 1980s and Les Murray in the 1990s waged campaigns against Board policies and processes which they saw as favouring left-leaning writers in urban areas. Methold proposed a national literature policy as an alternative, but his criticism of the Board brought him the opprobrium of an indignant writing community. Unsurprisingly, despite the positions of Murray, Methold and Mark O’Connor, most writers have been quick to defend Literature Board grants in general and funding for individuals in particular. As with the earlier CLF, outcomes have been impressive. In The Literature Board: A Brief History,Tom Shapcott concludes that, between 1973 and 1986, 830 of 1085 grant recipients produced or published work. As Literature Board budgets have failed to grow, state government funding for literature has increased, including support for organisations. In 2000 the Queensland government committed close to $1 million – far outstripping Literature Board contributions to that state – on a mix of grants for individual writers, publishers, festivals, prizes and the Queensland Writers C entre.

The protection and development of Australian publishing In 1974, after more than a decade of lobbying by the Australian Society of Authors, Public Lending Right (PLR) was secured as compensation to authors and publishers for the use of their books in public libraries. Such a victory would have been inconceivable even ten years earlier. In 2000–01 $5.36 million in PLR funds were distributed to 8109 creators and 209 publishers. The introduction of the long pursued Educational Lending Right was announced by the Keating government in 1994, but was scrapped by the Howard government. Six years later the Howard government restored the initiative as part of the GST book assistance package, making payments of $7.4 million to 5314 creators and 182 publishers, with payments due to expand over the three-year life of the package.

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The increasing scale and cultural significance of Australian publishing in the 1960s and 1970s demanded greater government attention. There were 495 Australian titles published in 1940, 612 in 1961, 2790 in 1981 and 9755 in 1999–2000.The membership of the Australian Book Publishers Association rose from twenty firms in 1948 to forty in 1960 and then to 149 in 1989. In the mid-1990s the ABPA became the APA (Australian Publishers Association) to more broadly reflect the publishing industry. In 2001 its 116 members represented 91 per cent of industry turnover. Though a majority of members were Australian-owned, the lion’s share of the market was controlled by a handful of multinational giants. From the mid-1960s the federal government sought to deregulate the Australian book trade. The ‘closed shop’ was protected by a number of regulatory measures, including the Traditional Market Agreement (which guaranteed British publishers privileged access over American publishers to the Australian market), and the Statement of Terms agreement (which regulated prices and limited distribution to approved booksellers within the Australian market). In 1971 the application of the Trade Practices Act saw the demise of retail price maintenance and four years later the Traditional Market Agreement ended. The protection provisions and other microeconomic interventions such as Book Bounty were reviewed several times in the 1970s and 1980s.The 1979 Industry Assistance Commission report, The Publishing Industry, argued for the winding back of most measures of government support: postal concessions, export incentives, literary grants and PLR. The recommendations were rejected, but further interventions took place, resulting in the demise of Book Bounty and the winding back and constant review of territorial copyright and parallel importing provisions. New measures included the Publish Australia Export Collective (1994), the thirty- and ninety-day rules under territorial copyright (1991) and the 1999 Book Industry Assistance package. The territorial copyright provisions were further reviewed in 1995 and in 2000.

Re-regulation: the Book Industry Assistance Package The impulse to re-regulate the book industry through the Book Industry Assistance Plan in 1999, in the wake of two decades of deregulation, indicates the continuing status of the book. While the application of the

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incoming GST was made to other cultural consumables (films, cable television and magazines) without any special pleading for exemption from their producers or distributors, the book industry waged a high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the application of the GST to books. The industry did, however, secure a $240 million package of initiatives over four years. The book industry campaigned against the GST because it would be a ‘tax on knowledge’ and an impediment to the free flow of ideas. Novelist Morris West commented that a ‘tax on knowledge is the first step towards tyranny’, while Paul Jennings attacked the proposed GST as an attack on children. The $240 million compensation plan addressed most phases of book creation, production and distribution, but in particular reflected the government’s concern about educational books, with more than half the package going to a textbook subsidy and school library purchases: Educational Textbook Subsidy Scheme $117.05 million Printing Industry Competitiveness Scheme $48 million Educational Lending Right $38 million Grants to Primary School Libraries $27.75 million Book Promotion Campaign $8 million Australian Bureau of Statistics (book industry data collection) $1.2 million By 2004 most elements of the compensation program had run their course. While the industry remains divided on the effectiveness of this scheme, it is clear that the heaviest impact of the GST has fallen on booksellers and trade publishers.

Government and the circulation of books As well as supporting the writing and publication of books, government has long been concerned with both the restriction and the facilitation of book circulation and consumption. Copyright laws limit the reproduction of books, but defamation, censorship and blasphemy limit the content and availability. The state-based Australian defamation laws were not dramatically changed in the second half of the twentieth century, but censorship regulations and processes changed dramatically. At midcentury the Commonwealth and the states relied on a range of agencies

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to police the importation and distribution of books: Commonwealth Customs, the Postmaster-General, the Literature Censorship Board and state government boards. From 1968 largely uniform state and Commonwealth laws were introduced, although some state censorship boards remained in place. In 1988 the Office of Film and Literature Classification took over the classification of all films, videos, publications and, later, computer games. State governments observed the classification schemes but decided which grades of material they would allow. For example, while Category One material is available in New South Wales and Victoria, it remains banned in Queensland. Prevailing community and government standards have changed significantly since the 1940s. In 1941 James Joyce’s novel Ulysses had been re-banned by the Commonwealth, and in 1946 a Victorian judge sentenced Robert Close, author of the novel Love Me, Sailor, to three months’ jail and fined him £100 for ‘obscene libel’.The novel’s publisher, Georgian House, was fined the not inconsiderable sum of £500. Also that year, a New South Wales magistrate fined the publisher of Lawson Glassop’s We Were the Rats £10 for obscenity. A turning point in attitudes to censorship came in 1957, as Peter Coleman notes in his definitive account Obscenity, Blasphemy, Sedition: 100 Years of Censorship in Australia. In that year, federal customs banned the classic Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J. D. Salinger which had been ‘freely circulating for some years’. Copies of the novel had even been donated to Canberra libraries by the US ambassador. The Customs Minister not only relented and released Catcher in the Rye but also ordered an overhaul of his department’s censorship machinery. Following this review, in 1957–58, 178 books remained on the prohibited list, including D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and several novels by Henry Miller. By the 1960s, however, while there were some notable acts of censorship (including the imprisonment of Richard Walsh and Richard Neville), the trend was generally one of liberalisation. There were moments of backsliding in Queensland, where in the mid-1980s the State Library shredded the books of Robert Mapplethorpe, and where, by virtue of it being a Category One publication, Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho remains banned. In 1997 the Commonwealth Chief Censor John Dickie commented that, despite stringent codes for offensive material

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such as child pornography, it would not be possible in future to ban material from the Internet. The expansion of library services and the maintenance of compulsory lodgement requirements for the National Library, state libraries and some parliamentary libraries saw the continuation into the late twentieth century of library objectives established a century earlier. By 2000, libraries were the most used public cultural institutions, with 50 per cent of Australians being library members and 20 per cent of all books read being borrowed from libraries. Similarly, funding by the three levels of government for the $700 million tripartite library system constitutes the most significant annual cultural investment made by government. A final domain of government–literary relations is the promotion of literature, writing and books. Both the federal government (through the Literature Board) and state governments (through their arts funding instrumentalities) increased support for public literary culture over the period. From the 1960s, writers’ festivals, events and prizes grew to be an important part of the public literary culture. By the late 1990s the writers’ festivals and their related prizes were signal events for government. The Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week were at the heart of the cultural tourism strategy of the South Australian government, while the Queensland government’s $150 000 suite of Premier’s Literary Awards was closely allied with Premier Peter Beattie’s Smart State agenda. Federally, the Howard government staged a major literary and arts festival in London in 2000 in order to presage the 2001 Centenary of Federation celebrations.

Future challenges The opacity of the relations between government and literature follows from their complexity, their employment in broader policy ambitions such as education and social policy, and the uncoordinated nature of their development. Although government and literature remain firmly entwined in projects of mutual development, government has hesitated to consider these relations in their entirety.The emergence of the knowledge economy suggests a central role for the publishing industry over the coming decade, but it is not yet clear how industry and government will meet this challenge.

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NOTE ON SOURCES Barry Andrews, ‘The Commonwealth Literary Fund & the Literature Board 1908–1980’, Australian Cultural History, no. 1, 1982, pp. 59–69; Bruce Bennett, ‘Literary Culture since Vietnam: A New Dynamic’, The Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, OUP, 1988; Pat Buckridge, ‘Clearing a Space for Australian Literature 1940–1965’, in Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss (eds), Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, OUP, 1998; Kath McLean, ‘Culture, Commerce and Ambivalence: A Study of Australian Federal Government Intervention in Book Publishing’, unpublished PhD thesis, Monash University, 2002; Thomas Shapcott, The Literature Board: A Brief History, St Lucia, UQP, 1988.

CHAPTER 7

Editing, Design and Production Craig Munro Book editors ply their trade well away from the glare of publicity, selecting and preparing texts for manufacture and sale. Most editors are now women, though Australia’s first editors were men like George Robertson, Arthur Jose and A. G. Stephens. By World War II a new style of editor was emerging and Beatrice Davis (1909–92) became our most famous book editor. Although publishing is at times imagined to be glamorous – and Beatrice herself was in many ways the epitome of postwar glamour – it is in reality a tough, commercially demanding and often thankless profession. Even during times of personal stress and sadness, Beatrice Davis held fast to her aura of editorial self-confidence. Despite her rather fearsome reputation, she made many enduring friendships with authors. Not surprisingly, her most stormy relationship was with the pathologically egotistical Xavier Herbert. When he finally delivered the manuscript of Soldiers’ Women in 1955, after many years’ gestation as well as much pestering from Beatrice, it weighed in at a thousand pages and was portentously titled ‘Of Mars, the Moon and Destiny’. Her immediate editorial concern though was that Angus & Robertson could be prosecuted for obscenity. She wrote to the self-absorbed Herbert with an uncharacteristically brutal frankness: ‘I was appalled by the squalor of your story . . . the sordid drunken scenes, the revolting fornication . . .’ Later she briskly insisted the novel be cut by 60 per cent. When in 1960

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Herbert got around to revising Soldiers’ Women, under her guidance, he wanted to dedicate the novel to his ‘Beloved Patroness’. After a further struggle, the novel was finally published in 1961 with the plainer dedication: ‘To Beatrice Davis’. Hilary McPhee exemplifies the editorial tradition pioneered by Beatrice Davis. She landed the job of editorial assistant at Penguin Australia in 1969 after several years abroad, including a stint with the publications branch of the British Council in London. Eight years earlier, while an honours student at Melbourne University, she’d worked for Clem Christesen’s journal Meanjin. Even though Penguin had been publishing Australian titles since Martin Boyd’s Lucinda Brayford in 1951, its huge international list had amassed a mere twenty-seven Australian Penguins by the time Hilary McPhee joined the Ringwood-based company. The whole operation was run by a couple of dozen staff and was so profitable that regular transfusions were sent to the ‘struggling’ parent back in London. In her memoir, Other People’s Words, McPhee pulls no punches in her account of the sometimes traumatic association she had with Penguin, which lasted until the drawn-out demise of McPhee Gribble. With the rapid expansion of publishing in the 1960s and 1970s, the book industry began to divide into two distinct branches: general or trade publishing (dominated by multinationals such as Penguin and later HarperCollins and Random), and educational, reference and professional publishing. In the ‘trade’ branch, copy editing was increasingly subcontracted to freelancers, whereas in the more specialised area of educational publishing such editing largely continued as an in-house function. As Di Brown shows in her case-study on commissioning, modern book editing has many levels of skill and responsibility. However, with the exception of high-profile creative editors such as Beatrice Davis and Hilary McPhee, the craft remains little understood or appreciated, even within the industry, and most training is run by editors themselves, either on the job or by their various state societies. In 2006 planning was under way for a national Institute of Professional Editors to oversee editing standards. Book design also falls into two main areas of specialty: covers and interior design which includes format, typography and layout. Invariably, project editors are closely involved in all aspects of book design,

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and covers are generally subcontracted to freelance designers and design firms, with interior design and format being handled in-house. All aspects of book design are celebrated by the annual design awards which have been run by the Australian Publishers Association since 1951. In 2001 the numerous categories included hardbacks and paperbacks, primary, secondary and tertiary texts, as well as a multiplicity of adult and children’s genres. Cookbooks and trade-fair catalogues were among the individual categories. Over fifty years, all the winners and short-listed titles for these awards would fill a small library, testimony to the strength of Australian book design in the postwar period. There is not the scope in this volume to treat the area of book printing in detail, especially as a separate history of Australian printing is now under way. Entitled ‘The Australian Printing History Project’, it is a joint initiative of equipment firm Heidelberg Australia, Australian Scholarly Publishing and the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. Since the halcyon days of A&R and its big Halstead printery, publishing and printing have gone their separate ways.There are now only a few large book printers in Australia, and hardback (cased) binding lines are almost non-existent. Australian printing was for many years supported by a government Book Bounty, in an attempt to keep it competitive with high-volume South-East Asian firms, but since the 1960s most fourcolour book work has gone offshore where the technology is more advanced and where printers have ready access to coated papers. In 2001 the cost advantage in printing offshore was estimated by the government’s book production Joint Industry Study (JIS) as up to 27 per cent, with the biggest margin being for casebound colour books. According to the JIS, Australian books printed both here and overseas cost more than $500 million to print in 2001. Paper, printing and binding each make up a third of this total. Although there were significant advantages for publishers in local printing, the JIS concluded that any reversal of the offshore printing trend would ‘not occur until there is a change to the mindset existing between printers and publishers and among printers themselves’. There was unfortunately no tradition of ‘cooperation or strategic alliances’, and the only glimmer of hope in the report was the suggestion for a joint venture company to attract back offshore business,

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starting with an advanced case bindery. As more than half of our book printing now takes place elsewhere, principally in South-East Asia, the benefits of this initiative are obvious.

Case-study: Beatrice Davis JACQUELINE KENT Beatrice Davis had at least one great advantage over today’s editors: she was able to invent her own job. When she started at A&R in 1937 – describing herself as ‘Beatrice Davis, editorial department’ – she was little more than a glorified secretary and occasional proofreader. In the next fortyodd years she became known not only for burnishing the manuscripts of a huge range of authors but as a trainer of editors, a critic and, through her membership of literary committees, a taste-maker. Born in Bendigo in 1909, Beatrice Deloitte Davis grew up in Sydney and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney in 1929 with majors in French and English and a sub-major in chemistry. At the time, women arts graduates not intending to go on to further study had two career options: librarianship or teaching. Beatrice had been awarded a teachers’ college scholarship that paid for her tuition on the understanding that she would be bonded to the Education Department for a number of years, but the idea of classroom teaching horrified her. She had little alternative but to turn to office work. After learning basic typing and shorthand, in 1930 she became secretary and editorial assistant to Dr Mervyn Archdall, editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. It was here that she learned and developed her skills as an editor. With a manual typewriter their sole technological aid, she and Archdall brought out a 32-page weekly magazine containing reports of medical and scientific meetings, analyses of medical politics, abstracts, reviews and original scientific articles.The abstracts were invaluable experience when Beatrice later began preparing manuscript summaries and assessments for A&R. All the material had to be selected and edited, with layouts chosen, copy fitted, proofs read and final copy checked. Whatever was not supplied Beatrice or Archdall had to write. Meanwhile, Archdall was moonlighting: editing technical, medical and scientific manuscripts for his old friend Walter Cousins, the publishing

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manager of A&R. Archdall began passing some of the manuscripts over to Beatrice. She discovered she enjoyed the work and speedily gained a reputation as a painstaking, diligent and dependable freelancer. After several years, Beatrice asked for a full-time job and in 1937 was taken on as A&R’s – and probably Australia’s – first full-time book editor. With the outbreak of World War II, and a diminished supply of books from Great Britain, there was increased demand for books written and produced in Australia. A&R, the country’s largest publisher and printer, geared itself to meet this demand at a time when a new generation of poets and novelists was emerging or reaching maturity. The group included Judith Wright, David Campbell, R. D. FitzGerald, Rosemary Dobson, Eve Langley, Dymphna Cusack, Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland. Beatrice had become ambitious for A&R to develop and promote current Australian literature. In 1941, with her friend and colleague the New Zealand-born poet Douglas Stewart, she persuaded A&R to publish two annual anthologies – Coast to Coast for short stories and Australian Poetry, showcasing ‘the cream of this year’s writing’. In 1944 Beatrice also persuaded A&R to take over publication of Southerly magazine. Published by the University of Sydney, Southerly was another showcase for new writers and, like its contemporary the Brisbane-based Meanjin Papers, became an important pillar of Australian cultural life. For three decades Beatrice was effectively the literary publisher of A&R as well as its chief editor. Until the appearance of British and American publishers with their own ideas for the Australian market, she and A&R had the field largely to themselves. She became the bridge that spanned modern Australian literature from Miles Franklin to Tim Winton. Among many others, she published the work of Eve Langley, Xavier Herbert, Hal Porter, Kylie Tennant and Thea Astley; she ensured that Christina Stead’s work appeared in Australian editions for the first time, and, by encouraging such seminal writers for children as Patricia Wrightson and Ivan Southall, she played a key role in developing Australian children’s literature. Beatrice’s influence was at its most crucial when Australian literature needed a boost: not until the early 1960s, for example, did the work of contemporary writers regularly appear on university curricula. She considered it part of her job to attend any literary meeting, lecture or festival,

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though there were precious few of these before the Adelaide Festival’s Writers Week began in 1960. By her presence she affirmed that Australian writing was important. ‘As much as anyone else, and more than most, she kept Australian literature alive for more than a quarter of a century,’ wrote Douglas Stewart. Beatrice was also one of the inaugural judges of the Miles Franklin Award. When Miles Franklin died in 1954, she left almost £8000 for an annual prize for the novel or play of the highest literary merit and which must present ‘Australian life in any of its phases’. The first winner was Patrick White with Voss in 1957. As Australia’s richest and most prestigious literary award for many years, the Miles Franklin influenced public perception of what was best in Australian fiction. Beatrice continued to serve on the Miles Franklin committee until 1991, the year before she died. At various times she was also a member of other panels awarding literary prizes, including the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize committee and the New South Wales Premier’s Award. In her work as a trainer of editors, Beatrice was part of an older tradition. As a guide, mentor and teacher to her staff, whom she trained on the job, she was in effect the leader of a craft guild. Training editors was something she took very seriously. In some ways, claimed Alec Bolton, A&R’s editorial department was like the famous fact-checking section that used to be a feature of the New Yorker magazine. Assessing the reliability of the facts within a manuscript was a critical part of the editor’s job. There was no editorial library as such, except for such basic texts as the Oxford Dictionary or Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Editors went down to A&R’s enormous bookshop on the ground floor to look things up, used their own books or, in extreme cases, went to the public library. (It was not unknown for an editor to spend a month in the Mitchell Library checking the facts for a complex non-fiction book.) An excellent memory was an indispensable asset, and authors who didn’t care about inaccuracies in their manuscripts drove the editorial staff mad. Once, when an editor pointed out that the same ship had two different names, the author (Frank Clune), whose books were ghost-written, promptly solved the problem by flipping a coin. Beatrice would ask her friend Henry Mund, the German immigrant who ran A&R’s production department and a man of immense learning

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about books and typography, to give a series of lunchtime talks to her staff about typefaces and book design. Leslie Apthorp, formerly employed by the great printers Jarrolds of Norwich and head of the printing department at Halstead Press, also spoke to the editors about printing. The editors trained by Beatrice at A&R became some of the best known and most expert in Australia. Beatrice’s editorial world now seems a simpler, gentler one, and in many ways it was. Her department was not intended to be commercial; indeed, the editorial section dwelt in splendid fiscal and intellectual isolation from the rest of the company. Unlike today’s editors, Beatrice and her staff were not responsible for preparing the budgets for books: that was the job of the finance or production department. Beatrice probably knew how well a book had sold only if editorial corrections had to be made for a reprint. Most amazing of all, there were few if any deadlines. A book took as long to edit as the editor thought was necessary. In fact, the treatment of submitted manuscripts was a rather courtly process. Every one was read by two readers, who typed and filed reports. If not returned to its author, the manuscript was placed in a cupboard to await its turn for editorial attention. As editorial traffic controller, Beatrice parcelled out the manuscripts. She read the most promising ones herself, but all the editors were expected to read and report on some and to write individual letters of rejection if necessary. A number of manuscripts accepted for publication never actually made it to the top of the editing pile, and languished in the cupboard for months, if not years. Until the early 1960s A&R was more like an old-fashioned university liberal arts department than a modern publishing company. But at about that time a whole new generation of publishers was beginning to take on A&R at its own game, showing both entrepreneurial skill and creative flair. These were the ‘larrikin publishers’ and they are described in Chapters 1 and 2: publishers such as Andrew Fabinyi, Frank Eyre, Brian Clouston and Lloyd O’Neil. A&R did not really rise to this challenge, however, continuing to do things as it always had. A&R itself was taken over by Gordon Barton in 1970, with unpleasant consequences for Beatrice. Barton engaged the young Richard Walsh as literary editor and publisher, and Walsh dismissed Beatrice. After 36 years, she left A&R at

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the end of April 1973 and became the Sydney editor for Thomas Nelson (Australia) for seven years, later freelancing for a number of Sydney publishers. She retired in the mid-1980s and died in May 1992. The conflict between Beatrice and Richard Walsh (also treated in Chapter 3) in some ways stands for the difference in approach between ‘old’ and ‘new’ publishing. Beatrice’s whole professional life had expressed her sense of stewardship about good writing. Her sense of authority in A&R, and within the wider literary community, had derived from this role of gatekeeper. Now she had to contend with someone who disregarded her notions of quality as old-fashioned. It was partly the difference between a woman who took the primacy of the written word for granted and a young man for whom books, though vitally important, were part of a larger media mix, with television, newspapers, the movies, even cartoons helping influence opinion. (Richard Walsh was at that time dividing his week between A&R in Sydney and Nation Review, which he edited, in Melbourne.) Partly because of competition from other media, publishers are finding it necessary to publish more and more titles to sustain the same profit level. Surprisingly, there are now fewer in-house editors: the experienced ones are not being replaced when they leave, and there is very little inhouse training for the few juniors who do join publishing companies. To save on costs, the work of editing is increasingly done by freelancers, some of whom have never worked in-house. With publishing schedules as tight as they are, with less and less time for checking, mistakes are inevitable. The pressure on editors increases and they become increasingly anxious. It’s all a long way from the cheerful, leisurely days when Beatrice Davis could stroll to the editorial cupboard, select a manuscript and hand it over to one of her editors who would work on it for as long as she thought necessary. In contrast, editors today lack not only time but status. Though Beatrice wasn’t involved in the scheduling or marketing side of books, for many years she was the public face of A&R, with enormous influence on its literary publishing – then underwritten by more lucrative educational and non-fiction titles. Her influence came from her combination of high intelligence, critical acuity, wit and charm, and from the fact that A&R was for a long time the only publishing company of any size in Australia.

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The marketing of books in the modern sense was in its infancy and editorial control was much greater. Beatrice often called editing ‘invisible mending’, and it has always been – and still is – an editor’s job to ensure that nothing gets in the way of a reader’s experience of a text. ‘Remember I’m a helper, as all editors should be,’ she wrote to a young author in the early 1980s, and this still holds true. Editors help writers do the best work of which they are capable. NOTE ON SOURCES Douglas Stewart, in Tribute to Beatrice Davis, an informal festschrift presented to Beatrice in 1974 after she left A&R; Alec Bolton, ‘Publishing in an Age of Innocence: A&R in the 1950s’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, 1995, pp. 12–20; Jacqueline Kent, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis – A Literary Life, Ringwood,Viking, 2001; Anthony Barker, One of the First and One of the Finest: Beatrice Davis, Book Editor, Carlton, Society of Editors (Vic.), 1991.

Case-study: Editors and Authors HILARY McPHEE Writing books must be the most isolated of the arts. The act of writing is a private one with nothing between the writer and the page or screen. Words which were working well one day can unravel the next. The imagined critics are rarely benign. Even after a decision has been taken to publish, the editor is often the first person to read the work in depth and respond on behalf of future readers. Much can depend on that first response. A relationship of trust – that their words are in good hands – is the best starting point, and the way through when things go wrong, as they almost always will at some point in the months before publication. Most publishers have not submitted themselves to their own processes or written even ten thousand words of sustained prose. Most authors are not good at knowing the kind of help they need – or at asking for it. The writing and editing time is always intense and potentially fraught with misunderstandings and sensitivities. Our way of working at McPhee Gribble evolved as we grew more experienced, saw much writing at an early stage and began to understand something of the anxieties and uncertainties that plague most authors. We made lots of mistakes, like all

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publishers do. Some letters still leap out of the files and bite me. There are a few angry exchanges. There’s a long cry of pain from a writer we prized but who had heard gossip that made her think otherwise, and who sacked us on the spot. There’s a book with too many typefaces that looks like a dog’s breakfast. The first edition of The Children’s Bach has a typo in the last sentence – proofread by at least three of us with tears in our eyes, we told the author later in feeble explanation.There’s a letter in the files from Rod Jones forgiving us for failing to submit Julia Paradise to one of the major awards, when it had a real chance of winning. And we knew Rod needed the money badly. We were acutely aware that our authors could have had bigger advances and marketing budgets elsewhere than we could give them, and that may have made us try harder. We were slugging it out with the big boys in public. Behind the scenes we were making it up as we went along, training people without much experience, developing a way of working editorially that included empathy along with process. We worked with writers in the office whenever we possibly could, and by letter and telephone when no one could afford to travel. Usually we managed to arrange at least an initial conversation face-to-face. We learnt to ask questions, to make suggestions and to do the first edit in pencil. This was a useful reminder, for ourselves, that the editorial process was secondary to the act of writing, and, for authors, that the text remained in their charge and that they must in the end seek solutions for themselves. Suggestions could be ignored, and often they were. But by our indicating the places in the work where the writing seemed uneven, the voice wavered or the reader’s attention wandered – often a sign of something going wrong – the author would find a way to solve the problem. Mostly I look at the books from that time and remember the pleasure; but we had our share of difficult authors, like everybody else. One writer brought us her first novel in a folder with each page safely sleeved in plastic, told us it was perfect, and produced examples of the typeface and cover image she required. All it needed was a fast track to the printer. But she learned to trust us after a while. There was the occasional person whose ego raged out of control – Don’t touch a comma – but their opposite number, You fix it for me, also needed careful handling. One or two men described themselves as geniuses and made it clear that they

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thought we were lucky to have them. Editorial suggestions, especially from women, were occasionally interpreted as wilful weakening of the masterpiece. Publishers had never given them the support they desired or the sales figures they deserved. Reviews were always by people who had an axe to grind. In a tussle over hardback and paperback formats one genius declared that he didn’t care if only twelve people read his novel, as long as they were the right twelve. Other problems sometimes arose on publication. One writer couldn’t bear to open his parcel of advance copies for several weeks and then disappeared when the first radio interview threatened. Another refused all interviews on publication but then complained about her sales. Another started speaking of my publicist as if she were a personal slave, then felt free to give her a hard time. One bloke, we later discovered, had sold his cover artwork to a mate in the pub. There were a few who couldn’t deal with the sight of their editor or publicist working with someone other than themselves – a problem in an office like ours where conversations were fairly public. Gradually we learnt to deflect the damage and minimise over-dependency, mainly, I think, by talking about it among ourselves. It didn’t happen often. But some contracts had been signed before we realised what we’d let ourselves in for, or the work was too good to refuse. Although we published and employed men from the start, we were sometimes caricatured as feminist publishers by the media, and more often by our competitors, which might have made them feel better. And we did have to deal occasionally with unreal expectations raised by our being a publishing house run by women, expected to support the movement, reminded of our responsibility to provide a conduit for our sisters in publishing collectives. Once or twice the writers we published copped feminist-inspired criticism – their women characters liked the smell of fresh washing or let men off the hook – and the occasional angry letter took us to task as defenders of male chauvinism for publishing them. But I don’t remember ever working with a woman writer who categorised herself as a genius – perhaps because the word had been gendered long ago. Uncertainty, a need for reassurance, was rather more likely. NOTE ON SOURCES This is an edited excerpt from Other P eople’s Words, Sydney, Pan Macmillan, 2001.

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Case-study: The Orchard KATH MCLEAN Drusilla Modjeska’s The Orchard (Pan Macmillan, 1994) is a collection of essay-like works that combine history, autobiography, mythology and fiction. It was first published in a small hardback format, and its design, as well as its content, attracted attention from the outset. Drusilla Modjeska has written a number of works concerned with women’s experiences, including Exiles at Home: Australian Women Writers 1925–1945 (1981), Poppy (1990), a fictionalised biography of the author’s mother, and Stravinsky’s Lunch (1999), a study of two Australian women artists. She has also edited or co-edited several anthologies of essays and a collection of poems, and has been actively involved in feminist issues and debate. The Orchard was written with the assistance of a Literature Board fellowship and a residency at the Varuna Writers Centre. The book’s creation was also assisted by publisher and editor Hilary McPhee. Modjeska first worked with McPhee on Poppy at Penguin, before working with her again on The Orchard. Modjeska had originally brought the novel to McPhee Gribble before McPhee moved to Pan Macmillan in 1992. Pan Macmillan Australia is a subsidiary company of the British-based Macmillan Limited which, until its acquisition by the German publishing group Von Holtzbrinck in 1995, had been privately owned since its establishment in 1843 by the British Macmillan family. Like many British publishers, Macmillan established an Australian office in the early twentieth century to more effectively distribute its books and later to produce Australian titles for the local market. Macmillan merged with the paperback publisher Pan in 1990 to form Pan Macmillan.The Picador imprint under which The Orchard appeared was originally established by Pan as its high-quality literary imprint. As the editor initially responsible for The Orchard, Hilary McPhee played a major role in supporting the author through the period of writing. She was also instrumental in the design process and in the initial marketing of the book. McPhee resigned from Pan Macmillan in late 1994, and was replaced by Nikki Christer who continues to work with Drusilla Modjeska. Judith Lukin-Amundsen was contracted by the publisher to copy-edit the book. She had worked for McPhee Gribble and

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then became freelance, working with literary authors such as Helen Garner, Robert Dessaix, Kate Grenville and Tim Winton. The Orchard was designed by freelance designer Mary Callaghan who designed most Australian-produced Picador titles. The unusual format and design were the result of ideas from the author, the publisher and the designer. Most Australian Picadors appear first in a standard ‘B format’ (196 × 130 mm) paperback; however, the first edition of The Orchard was a small hardback (193 × 118 mm) with an illustrated dust jacket.The format is reminiscent of the ‘pocket hardbacks’ of Everyman’s Library of the 1930s and 1940s. It has been suggested that those involved in contemporary book production are identifying and highlighting the unique attributes of the book by reviving traditional design. These attributes include the physical and sensual beauty of the book as an artefact, and its solid and enduring nature. One reviewer wrote of The Orchard: ‘With its beautiful and intelligent dust jacket, its unusual page size, its selection of print and paper, the book is a work of art, an object of contemplation, in its own right.’ The format and design of The Orchard certainly influenced subsequent book design in Australia, particularly in the ‘literary’ market where other publishers sought to replicate both its design and its success. The book was printed by McPherson’s Printing Group in Victoria, one of the three largest book printers in Australia and part of McPherson’s Limited, an Australian-owned company with interests in homewares, pumps and water systems as well as book and general printing. As printers of The Orchard, McPherson’s were eligible for the federal Book Bounty of 10.8 per cent of production costs. The hardback edition was printed in September 1994, and by the end of that year had been reprinted twice, with another two print runs in 1995.The paperback edition was released in June 1995 and was reprinted three times by September of the same year. Distribution of The Orchard to booksellers in Australia was carried out by Macmillan Distribution Services (MDS), another Macmillan subsidiary. MDS operates as the distribution service for local and British Macmillan companies, including Pan Macmillan, Macmillan Educational, Pan UK, Tor Books, Sidgwick & Jackson and Picador UK. As it was published in September, The Orchard was considered a pre-Christmas release with ample time for promotion, reviews and

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word-of-mouth recommendations to inform Christmas shoppers. The book certainly appealed to the gift market, with its eye-catching design and relatively low hardback price of $24.95. Pan Macmillan was thorough and successful in promoting the book. The author was involved in a number of activities, including a launch in Sydney and interviews and public appearances in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart. In the months following the book’s release, reviews appeared in all major Australian newspapers and magazines, along with author interviews in the Australian Book Review, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times, as well as on radio and television. Several independent bookshops organised their own promotional activities, with readings at Gleebooks in Sydney and Readings in Melbourne and an ambitious ‘Orchard dinner’ with the author organised by Fullers Bookshop in Hobart. Other booksellers mounted displays of the book and featured it, usually with an illustration of its cover, in their catalogues and newsletters. Sales of The Orchard in its first year were described by the publisher as ‘extraordinary’, with more than 30 000 sold by August 1995 in roughly equal numbers of hardback and paperback copies. The staff at Pan Macmillan were ‘very surprised’, a surprise that was manifested by print runs that were repeatedly too small. As a consequence, it became difficult to keep the book in stock. The necessity for repeated print runs in its first year demonstrated not only the book’s popularity but also the publisher’s uncertainty. The Orchard was particularly popular with independent booksellers, for its sales and profit potential and also its design and content. It was selected in 1995 as the Australian Booksellers Association’s Australian Book of the Year, a selection that requires booksellers to nominate the book that they most enjoyed selling. David Gaunt from Gleebooks in Sydney believes that booksellers felt ‘proud to sell it and to be associated with it’. The Orchard sold very well for independents and bookselling chains alike, and remained on the bestseller lists for most of 1995. Reviewers were almost unanimous in their praise, most focusing on the cross-genre nature of the work, its design and the notion of The Orchard as a ‘women’s book’. Reviewer Delia Falconer noted, for instance, that the hardback edition was ‘just the right size . . . to fit easily and without heftiness or strain into a pair of female hands’. Certainly the book

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was perceived by those involved with its production and sales, including the author and the publisher, as a book for women readers. There is a strong women’s market for books in Australia, and repeated surveys in the late twentieth century demonstrated that not only are women the predominant book readers in Australia but they are also the major book buyers. The Orchard quickly became a popular choice for the book discussion groups which proliferated in the 1990s and which were comprised largely of women. The Orchard also achieved success in several literary awards, winning the Nita B. Kibble Award for Women Writers in 1995, awarded annually to a woman writer for excellence in fictional or non-fictional ‘life writing’ ($12 000), and the 1995 Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards ($20 000). The book was also short-listed for the 1995 National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Award for Non-fiction, and the 1995 Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction in the Victorian Premier’s Awards. Interestingly, The Orchard was entered as non-fiction in those awards that differentiate between fiction and nonfiction, in spite of its clear fictional nature. The choice was made by the publisher after taking into account the dual nature of the book and Pan Macmillan’s other award entries. The Orchard was also short-listed for the Australian Book Publishers Association’s Book Design Awards in 1994, and for the 1995 3M Talking Book Award. The story of the creation, production, distribution and reception of The Orchard highlights many features of the contemporary Australian book trade, in particular the strong market for books of interest to women, the participation of multinational publishing companies, the role of government in supporting writers and local book production, and the importance of promotional activities. It also demonstrates the appeal of contemporary book design that refers back to traditional values and attributes of the book. NOTE ON SOURCES This case-study is based on interviews and correspondence. For reviews see: Gia Metherill, ‘Idiosyncratic Mix of Genres’, Canberra Times, 10 September 1994, p. C11; David Carter, ‘Fruitful Look for a Woman’s Place’, Weekend Australian, 22–23 October 1994, p. 5 Review; and Delia Falconer, ‘The Ripening Seed’, Age, 19 September 1994, p. 9 Extra.

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Case-study: Editing Indigenous Writing JOSIE DOUGLAS AND ROBYN SHEAHAN-BRIGHT In 2004 the Literature Board funded the third biennial Residential Editorial Program (REP), at Varuna in the Blue Mountains. These intensive courses have been immensely successful, with groups of a dozen book editors working with mentors such as Jacqueline Kent, Bruce Sims, Meredith Rose, Sophie Cunningham and Judith Lukin-Amundsen to develop unpublished fiction manuscripts. Editing Indigenous work has been a particular focus at all three programs, and participants have universally expressed their appreciation of the sessions run by Indigenous editors and writers such as Mary Graham, Josie Douglas, Melissa Lucashenko and Anita Heiss. Bruce Sims and Meredith Rose were also able to report on their experiences (working with Magabala Books), as was Sue Abbey for University of Queensland Press. Chairs of the organising committees, Sophie Cunningham and Linda Funnell, and program managers Robyn Sheahan-Bright and Rowena Lennox have reported on each activity, highlighting the usefulness of the Indigenous sessions in particular. The REP Report in 1999 concluded that the smallest presses were those committed to training Indigenous editors, that many publishing projects were not receiving the benefit of expert Indigenous assessment and consultation before being accepted, and that participants generally benefited from Indigenous input in the course. Josie Douglas was a participant in REP 1999, and then a speaker at the 2002 and 2004 courses. As publisher at IAD Press, Josie spoke of the special concerns held by editors of Indigenous materials. She described how most Aboriginal writers are at an immediate disadvantage when they enter the culture of publishing, and are likely to be more nervous than white writers. She told the editors to ‘take the urgency out of your voice and the deadline out of your head’. She also said that editors bring an attitude to their work which is a form of bias. Aboriginal English is a legitimate form of expression and editors need to consult the author regarding things like spelling and punctuation of the vernacular. Josie described IAD’s rigorous editorial policy which is ‘guided by Indigenous cultural and social practices’. Two types of structural editing

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are required: some texts have normal structural considerations, and others have a higher degree of repetition, and include many different elements; the challenge with the latter is ‘to maintain a cohesive thread’. Indigenous authors may have greater resistance to structural suggestions because of an uncertainty about the editorial process.They are very often first-time authors. ‘The sense of power vested in an editor can make Indigenous writers feel powerless; the editing process (stripped back to its barest) should be about empowerment. Editors who haven’t worked with Indigenous authors may also feel more hesitant in recommending structural changes due to “nervousness”.This could ultimately put Indigenous authors at a disadvantage, as an editor being too tentative won’t get the best out of their work.’ An important issue for Indigenous writers is their sense of identity, as some don’t separate their sense of self from their writing. Suggested editorial changes can bring about a sense that they are being judged on their Aboriginality and identity. To overcome this potential problem, editors need to take extra time to develop a relationship with Indigenous writers, being very clear in the way they communicate with their writers, especially about issues that may be culturally sensitive. This may require face-to-face work rather than phone or email communication. Being edited has the potential to put any writer out of their comfort zone. Some Indigenous texts don’t originate on paper; they come about through transcribing oral recordings, so communicating on paper is new, and perhaps not the most familiar way of doing things. To edit Aboriginal English requires a recognition that ‘there’s not one version of Aboriginal English . . . it changes from region to region’. It cannot be assumed that an English word has the same Indigenous meaning: for example cheeky, larrikin, deadly. In commercial publishing terms, Aboriginal English is seen as being in the too-hard basket. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Colloquial English is widely used by many Australian writers. An example of this is the way Peter Carey used historical bush English in True History of the Kelly Gang. When editing, ‘you need to think about how much you change the structure of the sentence; you need to keep the voice, but allow English readers to be able to understand. It’s a balancing act and different people have different views about where the balance lies’. Repetition is important in order to keep

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the voice. Oral tradition is different from the written tradition, and trying to maintain the feel of speech in print form (without losing the integrity of the work) is difficult. Josie Douglas warned editors that ‘generally Aboriginal writers haven’t grown up in a culture of literacy and don’t have a background of reading extensively across many genres’. On a practical level, she said that ‘scheduling is another consideration, since for people . . . in remote areas the logistics of getting material to them are more complicated’, and that ‘cultural perceptions of time differ and that permissions can take a long time’. She advised editors to ‘be familiar with your own strengths and weaknesses. If you’re not engaged with the text, don’t work on it’. She encouraged editors to read as many Indigenous texts as they could, becoming familiar with who is out there and their writing. ‘As an editor you’re acting as a mediator between the author and the readers of their stories. The book is a sign of respect, recognition that a group of people exist.’ She concluded by saying that ‘editing Indigenous texts can be an enormously rewarding experience and a lot of fun; it can also be the most challenging – either lots of laughs or lots of tears’.

Case-study: Commissioning DIANE BROWN In editing and publishing, the acquisitions environment consists of a series of wide-ranging and overlapping activities involving key people at various stages in the book’s life-cycle. Elizabeth Weiss, for example, describes her publishing role at Allen & Unwin as ‘bringing projects to the publishing house, working on developing projects with authors and keeping an overview of books which are being written, are in production or have been published, basically all through their lives’. It is the commissioning editor and publisher who create and develop ideas for new books, assess manuscripts and publishing proposals, negotiate the terms of the publishing agreement and contract authors, then facilitate the book’s journey through the publishing house and out into the wider community. The ability of the editor and publisher to create and shape content

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depends on many factors, in particular the tradition of the publishing house, its organisational structure and its publishing culture. Levels of responsibility in publishing vary from company to company. Generally speaking, it is the editor who evaluates proposals and develops projects, contracts and liaises with authors and takes books through to publication. The publisher has more seniority, occupies a more powerful management position and undertakes wider legal, financial, contractual and policy responsibilities. When Susan Hawthorne was a commissioning editor with Penguin Books, ‘it was the publishing director or the publisher who had the final say on a book and signed off on the contract, although commissioning editors did have a say in what books were taken on . . . and often independently commissioned works’.When Bruce Sims was adult fiction publisher with Penguin Books, ‘the publishing director or the responsible commissioning editor would confer with the marketing, sales and possibly even the managing director, even the company secretary, if you were talking large sums of money for committing to a particular book’. As trade publisher with Allen & Unwin, Sophie Cunningham ran her publishing decisions past the managing director. There is often an overlapping or blurring of various roles in which the commissioning editor, the acquisitions editor and the publisher can all be doing the same (or similar) things. In Australia this could be an ‘editor’, a ‘senior editor’, a ‘publisher’ or, in some cases, a ‘publishing manager’. The private and public networks in which editors and publishers circulate represent in-house publishing cultures and ever-widening book communities, particularly with the emergence and expansion of global communication and electronic delivery platforms in the book industry. Editors and publishers are both cultural gatekeepers of ideas and knowledge and also agents for social and political change, making both more accessible to a wider reading community. In order to examine the cultural and commercial forces at work, it is necessary to explore the overlapping issues of identity, representation and institutionalisation in Australian book publishing.While book publishing relies absolutely on teamwork, it is also a highly individualistic profession. Sally Milner and Sylvia Hale, who established their own publishing companies, argue that the best publishing lists are created by individuals who also take the financial risks.While the immediate focus is necessarily

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on current titles, a strong backlist of steady sellers provides the flow of capital to enable the commissioning and acquisition of new works. The list could be broad and general – aimed at adult fiction, non-fiction and children’s books – or the publisher might specialise in travel, Indigenous writing, business, drama, self-help, poetry or gardening. Although many publishers increasingly include children’s books in their lists, few have chosen to specialise in children’s books. When editors and publishers are asked what their understanding of the term ‘commissioning’ is, their individual responses are tempered by intuitive practice, based on personal experience. While Bruce Sims argues that the starting point for commissioning or acquiring content ‘is usually an author and an author’s idea’, Ray Coffey of Fremantle Arts Centre Press suggests that ‘it may even be debatable at the end of the day whether or not you commissioned it or the author started to develop the idea independently, so that it is a working kind of collaborative process’. It is often the ideas or the concepts for a book that are commissioned in the first instance. In such proactive commissioning, the editor or the publisher initiate the concept, approach an author and shape the book’s content, whereas ‘acquisitions’ is regarded as a more passive and responsive role. This covers unsolicited manuscripts as well as publishing proposals submitted by agents. Craig Munro, formerly UQP’s publishing manager, argues that agents are increasingly performing a ‘quasi commissioning role’. The publishing committee, as a decision-making body, comprises various members of the publishing staff who represent editorial, marketing, sales and finance. Sue Abbey, former senior editor with UQP, views the publishing committee as ‘a forum for publishing proposals to be passionately pushed by commissioning editors or publishers, where arguments come from intuition or from the heart’. Outside of formal in-house meetings, more informal discussion takes place on a daily basis between publishing staff. Finance, sales and marketing increasingly influence decision-making in both large and small publishing companies and this affects commissioning and acquisitions. Jackie Yowell notes that ‘every person knows that the way to get the marketing department to take your book on is to say it’s like some other successful book’. Children’s publisher Jane Covernton

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observes that ‘when you work for a much larger company, and even with the best will in the world, you are very definitely conscious that you have to produce so many books a year, that make such and such a turnover’. Bruce Sims maintains that ‘the whole way in which you approach the book will be affected by what you see as the market. I don’t think you can see a book in the absence of an audience. This isn’t separate from commissioning – they are tied in together’. Ray Coffey approaches projects from the ‘creative and imaginative side’ and argues that costing and marketing considerations can sometimes block new ideas. Editors and publishers continue to take publishing risks in spite of finance-led and market-driven economies. Coffey believes that it is more likely to be the ‘small independents’ who work in ‘the creative and imaginative gaps vacated by the economic rationalist end of publishing’. Susan Hawthorne argues that ‘the real distinction between large and small is in relation to the individual’s power’ and that ‘probably the advantage that independent publishers have over the mainstream is that there isn’t anybody standing over them. What you do have as an independent publisher are your own financial or imaginative limitations’. The acquisition of independent local content is critical to the development and promotion of Australian cultural consciousness, in fostering ideas and works by local authors, and in raising community awareness of, and interest in, content that widens debate. The social, political and economic conditions in which communities of authors, editors and publishers work provide the context in which all commissioning and acquisitions take place. The rise of an Aboriginal writing and publishing movement, for example, reflects the struggle by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people towards self-determination. This struggle to preserve, maintain and promote knowledge, language and culture also serves to educate and inform non-Indigenous audiences around the world. NOTE ON SOURCES Narrative excerpts from interviews (1998–99) for the author’s PhD research: with Elizabeth Weiss, Allen & Unwin academic publisher; Bruce Sims, formerly Penguin adult fiction publisher and Magabala Books publishing manager; Susan Hawthorne, co-founder of Spinifex Press and also Penguin commissioning editor; Jackie Yowell, non-fiction publisher with Allen & Unwin, formerly associate publisher with Penguin Books; Craig Munro, fiction editor and later publishing manager at UQP; Ray Coffey, managing editor

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then publisher and CEO, Fremantle Arts Centre Press; Sophie Cunningham, McPhee Gribble publisher then Allen & Unwin trade publisher; Sally Milner, Greenhouse Publications founder, then Sally Milner Publishing; Sylvia Hale, co-founder and chair of Hale & Iremonger and Southwood Press; Jane Covernton, Omnibus Books co-founder with Sue Williams, then Working Title Press; Sue Abbey, formerly UQP senior editor, supervising Indigenous publishing. See also Lewis Coser, Charles Kadushin and Walter Powell’s interview-based study of American publishing, Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing, New York, Basic Books, 1982.

Case-study: Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang PAUL EGGERT Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) was one of the last significant works of literature to appear in a century that had seen remarkable advances in the technology of book production.The novel was prepared for simultaneous production in both New York and Brisbane, with the benefit of the Internet, email, digital files and the fax machine. It nevertheless demonstrated the difficulties faced by authors and publishers in attempting to produce identical editions for different markets. The University of Queensland Press (UQP) had been Carey’s publisher since 1974 and had continued to look after his Australian rights after he became internationally successful and moved to New York. The prestigious US literary publisher Knopf (a division of Random House) had become his New York publisher. Carey worked on the novel for nearly three years. In May 1999 he took his second research trip to Kelly country, riding around parts of northeastern Victoria on horseback with Laurie Muller, then general manager of UQP. Prior to the trip, Muller had already read an incomplete early draft of the novel. There was, as he recalled, a ‘mixture of more sophisticated writing of Carey’s normal kind coupled with [Carey’s boyhood] Bacchus Marsh State School vernacular’. As they discussed the draft by the light of the campfire, Muller told Carey that the narrative was not yet working, that the two styles sat uneasily together. Carey promised to rewrite and, after he returned to New York, began to bounce rewritten chapters off Muller and also another Australian friend, playwright David Williamson. Once back in New York he must have worked fast and hard, repunctuating and creatively misspelling in an attempt to capture the syntax

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and presentation of a semi-literate, late nineteenth-century bushman. On 3 November 1999 Williamson wrote him a long, encouraging email, which also included a suggestion for improvement that must have fallen on willing ears and also perhaps prepared the ground for the copy-edit that Knopf ’s Gary Fisketjon would carry out the following February: ‘Did you ever think of retaining Ned’s original spelling and not cleaning it up?’ This was an astute piece of advice from a playwright whose ear for Australian idiom is legendary. Carey pushed on, finally writing about 100 000 words in the new voice he was perfecting. Muller called the emerging chapters, when they arrived, ‘an alchemist’s conversion’. Carey had promised to deliver a completed manuscript by late 1999 for publication soon after the Sydney Olympics in September 2000. Although the Australian edition would appear slightly before the Knopf, detailed editing would be done by Fisketjon, who had worked on Carey’s previous novel Jack Maggs (1997). Fisketjon’s comments were frequently about matters other than consistency of presentation and the correction of factual errors. Such corrections are present in large numbers in the green-ink-edited manuscript of the novel now in the State Library of Victoria, but there are also requests for variation of expression, repositioning of phrases, or more eloquent or forceful wording. Good editors identify their author’s intentions and then help to realise them more effectively. There is an irony in this ventriloquial novel to find the editor so cleverly ventriloquising the author. Carey resists Fisketjon’s suggestions here and there, but rarely ignores them. Both author and editor laboured mightily: Carey over three years, Fisketjon in two much shorter but highly intensive bursts. American editing, at least for many university presses and the bigger commercial houses, is often enviably professional. It can also become, on occasion, intrusive and pedantic. Working out an accommodation between Fisketjon’s real enthusiasm for the novel and his professional obligation to copy-edit its non-standard voice must have been a tricky business. As a result of Fisketjon’s edit, Carey revised the novel intensively, from beginning to end, sentence by sentence, at the same time taking care to control the computer files of his by now lengthy novel. Fisketjon passed over the whole manuscript to Laurie Muller at the 2000 Adelaide Festival, together with a disk containing the files of the novel. Muller

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wanted the UQP typesetting to be the source of the Knopf edition, partly from professional pride and partly to guarantee that UQP retained Australian territorial copyright. Carey wanted Australian spellings and diction, as well as historical accuracy, all of which required local editorial input. UQP editorial staff immediately began to work on the Australianisms, trying to eliminate anachronisms and liaising with Sue Butler at the Macquarie Dictionary to trace a number of obscure usages. Muller brought some of his bush upbringing (in Victoria’s upper Mallee district) to the novel, working on place names, horse-riding terms, and names for trees, weaponry and even birdcalls. His five-page list of queries was emailed to Carey in April 2000. Although UQP’s editorial staff continued to liaise with Fisketjon and other editorial and production people at Knopf throughout 2000, the US edition had later deadlines. This caused problems in both the final editing and the proofing at UQP. There was more than one editorial view of how best to render this novel’s unique language and there were transPacific typesetting and design issues as well. An extraordinary amount of energy and attention were required to bring Carey’s deliberate use of non-standard language through the complex stages of production. Deadlines for UQP’s October publishing date were already tight. The moment UQP despatched its document files to Knopf for their separate typesetting, the novel’s single line of textual descent split into two and it became inevitable that there would be many differences between the two editions. In going its own way, Knopf faced a problem that dogs any such attempt to achieve identical texts of the same work. If a second publisher wants to set from the ‘same’ files as the first, but in a different typesetting program, only word-processed ‘document’ files are usable. Given that UQP’s Ventura typesetting file was not used by Knopf, the only way the text could have remained identical in the two editions would be if Knopf had kept a log of all UQP’s changes, and vice versa, and if both sides had incorporated them successfully. The various UQP editions of the novel, in both hardback and paperback, achieved sales approaching 300 000 copies within a few years, and many other editions appeared in different countries and in different translations, such is Peter Carey’s international reputation. Though a work of serious literature, the novel was aggressively marketed by UQP

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to a wide readership. Few would guess at its difficult gestation or collaborative production in New York and Brisbane. NOTE ON SOURCES Interviews with Peter Carey and with UQP staff members; Peter Carey archive at the State Library of Victoria.

Case-study: Illustrated Books GUY MIRABELLA The success of a book is nearly always seen in its commercial ability to create sales. It has to be right for its market at that time. Books are at one level an object of commerce but on another are also objects of desire. They are meant to be read, which is most important, but I believe they are also meant to be seen, caressed and even smelt.The dialogue between the author and the reader, using text and visual information, is the designer’s task as mediator. Some books can be commercially problematical; they may have pushed the boundaries of design for their own good. There is a fine balance between an object that is aesthetically beautiful and one which is radical in its method. Good design helps the sale of a book; there is no question about that. It is a collaborative effort between author, publisher, editor and designer to meet budget constraints and work together with the sales team. All the elements for a book must be completely integrated, internal and external. A good book designer accepts the reality that all decisions are a commercial–artistic compromise. A book’s cover should give us an insight into the character of the author and how he or she is thinking. With illustrated books, choosing the best picture and having it as large as possible and ‘whacking a bit of type over the top’ is not necessarily going to give the best result. In 1995 I was commissioned to design the cookbook Paramount Cooking by Sydney chef Christine Manfield. The cover has a photograph of one of Christine’s signature dishes, an eggplant, goat’s cheese and pesto sandwich, which is treated quite small, measuring 35 × 40 mm and positioned in the bottom right corner. It goes against all the principles that are perceived to make a commercial success. Paramount Cooking was a

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commercial success. It was the author’s first book and I felt that, because of the recognition of this Sydney restaurant, it was important to push not only the restaurant name but also that of the restaurateur as author. I designed a typographical cover that would achieve an instant connection with the target audience. Christine’s awareness of good, modern design principles was also an influence in treating the book as a total package and pushing the desire of the object one step further by cutting a curve along the right-hand edge. The curve was implemented for various reasons. The restaurant’s ceiling and walls are curved. After my first meeting with the author, leaving the restaurant to catch a taxi for the airport, I noticed the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These constructions not only have sensuous sweeping curves but have international recognition that would give the book a sense of place and a connection to its environment. The book’s design would give it a relationship to its location. Unlike Melbourne, with its grid system, Sydney’s roads seemed to me intertwined, round and undulating. I wanted this to be a very Sydney book. The choice of colours, the typeface treatment for the text and its balance within the white space of the layout entice the reader to grab bits of information easily and direct them to the next step. This information is visually coded for quick recognition and reliability. For inspiration for the design of Stephanie’s Seasons by restaurateur Stephanie Alexander I turned to the film Death in Venice, directed by Luchino Visconti, and the book The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. In 1994 Stephanie’s Seasons was one of three nominees selected from a field of 370 worldwide for the biennial Julia Child Cookbook Award. The book is the personal journey of this author over a year as she comes to terms with her day-to-day life as a restaurateur, mother and friend. It is a candid biography and also an introspective book, as Alexander contemplates the forces of change, the search for beauty and the quandary she faces and eventually embraces despite herself. Reading the manuscript, time past, present and future kept coming to mind – the idea of time without looking nostalgic. Various layers of thought, transparent and yet all coloured in various warm tones, were suggested. In Visconti’s film and Lampedusa’s book the idea of time, introspection and contemplation are visually stunning, whether they

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appear on screen or in the mind as you are reading. It is the colours that I find important.The browns, the golds, the reds.The ideas for the design of the book came from these two sources. The text is printed brown on a paper that was printed in a soft yellow, the colour of custard. I felt it would be inappropriate to illustrate the text with fully bled glossy food pics. Stephanie’s Seasons was driven by the text, a diary of a culinary year celebrating the use of local and seasonal ingredients. It is punctuated with small pictures capturing time. These pictures are printed in one colour and are details of hands, kitchen utensils and other images of culinary moments. Each month begins with a full-page photograph of an ingredient that becomes available during that time. These grainy textured images, like the smaller photographs, show details that are not quite perfect. They have an impressionist quality in their treatment. They are moody and almost empty as if someone had just walked past. They are in a mild state of decay. The photographs were taken by Lynette Zeeng, who produced colour polaroid transfers of ingredients used in the recipes rather than food on plates.This method of photography proved to be ideal in capturing the moments in the preparation of food. Their colours aren’t new or clean but appear scrubbed and worn like Visconti’s Death in Venice, capturing shades of brown, gold and red. They seem familiar and dear like one’s nearest and most trusted friends. With all books there is a conversation going on. While some are loud and brash and at the cutting edge of design, others are gentle and quiet, as in Stephanie’s Seasons. The Nature of Gardens, edited by Peter Timms, is a kind of sociology of gardens and gardening. Margaret Scott’s chapter describes the pressedmetal garden on the walls and ceiling of a house in Tasmania. It was reading this chapter that inspired the design for the cover of the book. I wanted to create a design that would help sell this book by an unknown author but also which the author would be proud of. I always try to get to know the author, and I had the impression, without knowing Peter, of an elegance and gentleness. So the cover reflects a love of gardens and is meant to be gentle, to the point of whispering to the person picking it up. Beautiful, stylish and intelligent books make you pause and skip a heartbeat. The feel of the paper, the images, the typeface, the design and

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the message all connect and unite to surprise us. Clever designers grab the various elements of a book and mix and stir and add a part of themselves each time they produce a new design.The book designer is a great dreamer who helps access the words that carry us to another world.

CHAPTER 8

The Retail Book Trade Michael Zifcak After the Second World War, retail bookselling was entering a period of consolidation, expansion and relative prosperity. Over the next fifty years, however, bookselling was confronted by the closed market operations, the abolition of resale price maintenance and the amendments to the Copyright Act. Most of these had their origins in the widely held belief that the prices of imported books in Australia were higher than the prices in the countries of publication. Because of geographical location, and a comparatively sparse population, Australia continued to be heavily dependent on imported books.

Postwar importation The postwar importation of books from the United Kingdom and the United States was impeded by the shortage of foreign currency and consequently the government introduced an import licensing system. While UK importation was controlled mainly on sterling quotas allocated to booksellers and wholesalers, US importation was restricted to technical and tertiary educational titles. An application to import from the United States had to list the titles and publishers, which, on receipt of the books, were checked off line by line. UK imports were checked only against the value of the allocated quota.This system operated through the 1950s, giving preferential treatment to British books.

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The Australian book market at the time was well served by a string of very good city bookshops, including Angus & Robertson, Cheshire’s, Hall’s,Whitcomb and Tombs, Rigby’s, Collins Booksellers, Dymocks, Hill of Content Bookshop, Anthony Hordern’s, Albert’s Bookshop, Morgan’s Bookshop, the Technical Book and Magazine Company, McGill’s and Standard Books. Almost all were located on the main shopping street. Other key outlets included newsagents, specialist educational bookshops and library suppliers. Religious bookshops included Queensland Book Depot, Presbyterian Bookroom, Methodist Bookshops, Catholic Library Suppliers and many others. These bookshops were exempt from paying taxes, which gave them a significant competitive advantage.

Statement of Terms Retail bookselling was strictly regulated by a set of agreements generally referred to as the Statement of Terms and Conditions for the Sale in Australia of New Books Published in Australia or in the UK. Most European countries operated under similar price-fixing regulations. In Australia the system was controlled by the Australian Booksellers Association, the Publishers Association and the Australian Book Trade Advisory Committee. Applicants wishing to become authorised booksellers had to operate from commercial premises and open during business hours. Books had to be the greater part of their stock-in-trade and they must employ qualified booksellers. Supermarkets were specifically excluded and department stores were required to operate book departments with qualified staff.

Closed market In the postwar period US publishers accepted that Australia, as part of the British Commonwealth, was a ‘traditional’ British book market. US publishers also realised they could sell more titles to Australia via UK editions than by exporting direct. At first, enterprising UK publishers sent sales representatives out to call on Australian booksellers, fulfilling orders directly from the United Kingdom. With growing business, some publishers established their own local warehouses or they appointed stockists. The choice for Australian

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booksellers was to continue indenting at the prevailing gross margin of up to 60 per cent (to cover freight, insurance and the risk of overstocks) or to obtain supplies from local stockists at a reduced margin (33 per cent) but with the benefit of freight-free supplies and the concession of returning unsold copies for full credit. Booksellers who chose to order from local stock at the lower discount for immediate delivery soon discovered that, due to inadequate stockholding, their orders were placed with the UK publisher, thereby forfeiting the advantage of dealing with local suppliers. The question of ‘local stock versus indent’ was on the agenda of every Booksellers Association general meeting and was hotly debated. The switch to indenting British books from UK wholesalers, which became known as ‘buying around’, caused great friction between booksellers and local suppliers, to the point that closed market operations became unprofitable. To assess the situation, in 1968 the Publishers Association in London dispatched its general secretary and president to discuss the situation and seek some remedies. As a last resort, UK publishers and their Australian branches invoked the Australian Copyright Act 1968 in the belief that Section 37 protected closed market operations. In practice, this section made it illegal to import an American edition when a British or an Australian edition existed. Publishers, however, went further, believing that this section also outlawed imports from UK wholesalers. ‘Buying around’ continued, but no publisher took legal action against an importing bookseller, although many threatened to do so. In the end it was left to the more moderate views in the trade on both sides that this was hardly a copyright problem and that the free market forces should find the solution. This indeed happened when closed market operators increased their stockholding, improved service, extended better terms to booksellers (up to 40 per cent discount) and so made indenting less attractive.

Resale price maintenance A completely new bookselling environment followed the abolition of resale price maintenance in 1972. Until then, prices were regulated by the Statement of Terms, which required that books must be sold at the

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retail prices established by the publishers, with imported books sold according to an agreed ‘price schedule’. Libraries, schools, students and other special customers were allowed specified discounts. Booksellers in breach of the Statement of Terms were asked to cease cutting prices, or risk having their supplies stopped or their trade discounts reduced. Abolition of resale price maintenance followed a hearing before the Trade Practices Tribunal which rejected the arguments for exemption.The Tribunal President found that prices of books would be reduced, with no reduction in the quality and variety of books available. Established bookshops coped with the abolition of resale price maintenance reasonably well. However, aggressive price-cutting was introduced by supermarkets using books as loss leaders to attract customers to purchase other goods at high margins. Other negative results included the growth of remaindering and the proliferation of non-bookshop outlets as significant players in the deregulated book market. A book discounter, Bookworld (the subject of a case-study here), emerged in Queensland as a fully professional discount chain which discounted every new title by 10 to 15 per cent and offered a wide range of remainders. While other discounters operated from inferior locations, Bookworld expanded into prime retail sites with attractive shop design and extensive price advertising. Its volume of business gave it substantial purchasing power and attracted discounts of up to 60 per cent from publishers, while the rest of the trade, notably the independent booksellers, languished at 40 per cent. Bookworld merged in 1990 with Angus & Robertson, the largest Australian chain, creating a group of 167 retail shops and claiming up to 20 per cent of the national market.

Copyright and the Traditional Market Agreement For a while, copyright ceased to be the number one topic in the book trade. In the 1980s, however, it captured the attention not only of the trade but also of the media and the government. Until then, books from the United States had taken too long to reach the Australian market. Other than publishers of tertiary educational textbooks (McGraw-Hill, John Wiley and Sons, Addison Wesley, Prentice Hall), US publishers did not maintain stockholding warehouses in Australia, preferring to supply

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via the United Kingdom. Selling British Commonwealth rights to UK publishers, including Australia and New Zealand, involved one transaction and removed the costs of shipping and credit collections. Unfortunately, a UK edition was published many months after the original US one. Because Australia represented such a large part of the British publishers’ exports, British publishers insisted on having the copyright for Australia and New Zealand included in any purchase of rights, and this became known as the ‘traditional market agreement’. Columnist and bookseller Max Harris vigorously campaigned against the agreement, and when the US Justice Department examined it the UK and US publishers did not argue for retention but accepted the Department’s ‘consent decree’. With the agreement at an end, the availability of US books improved but without much effect on prices.

Copyright Amendment Act 1991 The question of imported book prices remained on the agenda, however, and the view prevailed that the Copyright Act must be amended to further improve both availability and pricing of imported books. The idea found favour in a large section of retail bookselling and this encouraged the government to refer the matter to a Copyright Law Review Committee (CLRC), an instrument of the Attorney-General’s Department. The outcome was the Copyright Amendment Act 1991, and an amendment known as the 30/90 Rule. If a book published overseas was not available in a commercial quantity on the Australian market within thirty days, it would lose territorial copyright protection and could be imported from anywhere in any edition.Titles published before these amendments also lost copyright protection if the copyright holder failed to supply the book within ninety days. This improved the prompt availability of overseas titles but again had a minimal impact on prices. Overseas publishers also began delaying release dates in their own country to allow stock to reach Australia within thirty days, and more overseas books were printed in Australia or Asia to meet the time limit. The CLRC was also asked to look at prices, but it concluded that overseas books were not being sold in Australia at unreasonably high prices. However, the price issue received wide media attention and the

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government referred the CLRC report and the question of imported book prices to the Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA). The PSA believed that prices would decrease if the closed market was dismantled and booksellers were able to import directly from overseas suppliers.

Open market Imported book prices remained a contentious issue. Following the government’s ruling on imported music CDs, which arguably reduced prices, a Bill to establish an open market for books was introduced in the federal parliament in 2001. Parliament subsequently rejected the open market plan.

Book statistics The lack of statistics has always been a weakness of the Australian book industry.The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collected data on only the production and sales of ‘printed matter’ which included newspapers and magazines. Independently, the Australian Publishers Association (APA) collected annual statistics from its membership from a core sample of participants, which was an improvement on the early ABS data (see Chapter 9). Similarly, the Australian Booksellers Association employed professional consultants in a brave attempt to coordinate information from chains, department stores and independents. The Literature Board commissioned and published two surveys: The Reading and Buying of Books in Australia (1978), and Books – Who Reads Them? (1990), a study of borrowing and buying. Most public inquiries into aspects of the book industry relied on the data from these surveys, but in terms of total book sales the APA statistics were considered the most reliable. In 1990 it was estimated that, of all books sold, 35 per cent were general books, 31 per cent were academic titles, 20 per cent were schoolbooks, 6 per cent were children’s books and 8 per cent were book club and other promotions. In terms of distribution, chains handled 35 per cent, department stores 15 per cent, independents 20 per cent, newsagents 15 per cent, and the balance through book clubs, discounters and other outlets.

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Range of retail outlets The impressive growth in book sales is, of course, directly related to the increase in population, from 12 million in 1950 to 20 million at the end of the century.The number of retail book outlets also increased. Although Australian bookselling had its roots in the British or European style of ‘High Street’ bookshop, over the years its character changed to resemble that of US chains. Chains such as Angus & Robertson, Collins Booksellers and Dymocks dominated the local scene, followed by department stores like Myer, Grace Bros and David Jones. The Sydney University Co-Operative Bookshop also operated a chain of campus outlets. After 1972, discount bookselling chains (including ColourCode, Bookworld and Book City) represented a large slice of the total book sales. While large chains continued to grow, independent bookshops managed quite well in retail areas not yet penetrated by chains or discounters. Some loose groupings of prominent independents took place in Victoria and New South Wales, enhancing their purchasing power. Few, however, ventured into multi-branch operations, the exceptions being Readings in Melbourne, Shearers in Sydney and Mary Ryan in Queensland. Newsagents – originally established by newspaper and magazine publishers and strictly regulated by them – carried a sizeable stock of mass-market paperbacks and a handful of hardback bestsellers.They became a key part of the bookselling scene, particularly in rural areas. The deregulation of the restrictive newsagency system was finally implemented in 1998, enabling other businesses to sell newspapers and magazines. Fearing a loss of business, newsagents resolved to increase their book stocks, establishing the ‘Book Megastore’ brand name.

Franchising Franchising was introduced by Angus & Robertson in the early 1970s. It proved to be an effective way of expanding a network of bookshops and by 2000 there were some 300 franchised bookshops. The fundamental philosophy was summed up by the slogan, ‘Own your own bookshop without being on your own’.The franchisee gained the use of an established business name, ‘instant goodwill’, the use of a proven business system, reduced set-up expenses, lower risk of failure, promotional

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support, bulk purchasing power, better borrowing, training and advice. Benefits to the franchisor included rapid expansion without substantial capital commitment, franchise fee income, cost-effective advertising, purchasing power, volume discounts from publishers and fewer administrative and staff problems. What’s more, the customer end of the business was being looked after by highly motivated owner-operators.

Wholesaling Given that at least 50 per cent of all books sold in Australia were imported, wholesaling was slow in developing. UK and US books were distributed on a closed market basis by overseas publishers maintaining separate warehouses. However, to maintain the profitability of such warehouses, the distribution of locally published books was added to their stocklist. In that way, William Collins (later part of HarperCollins), Penguin and Allen & Unwin became mini-wholesalers, but a wholesale operation like Baker & Taylor in the United States did not emerge. The distribution of paperbacks to newsagents, mostly on a vendor refill basis, and supplies to libraries became the preferred areas for wholesalers.Two typical operators were Forward Library Supplies, founded and operated by Mick Unger, and the Australian and New Zealand Book Company, founded, owned and operated by Geoffrey King. Gordon & Gotch started out as distributors of local and overseas journals and magazines, supplying mainly newsagents. Garry Allen’s wholesale business distributed selected books on a title-by-title basis, not on an imprint basis. Bookwise International, the distributor of the Singapore Times Publishing Group, later added local publishers to its list of imported titles. In the area of remainders, Bristol Books in Sydney became the country’s recognised wholesaler, followed by Australian Book Centre in Queensland.

School bookselling School bookselling became highly competitive, particularly after the abolition of resale price maintenance (RPM). With RPM, schools received a discount of only 10 per cent, but after 1972 educational booksellers offered discounts of up to 20 per cent plus free school equipment such as

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television sets and computers. In many ways, school booksellers acted as publishers’ representatives, visiting schools and bringing suitable titles to the attention of teachers and librarians. Some of the better known educational booksellers were Campion Books, Cheshire’s Bookshops, Hall’s Bookstore, Oldmeadow and Scott Educational in Melbourne; George Barker in Brisbane; Wiggs and Standard Books in Adelaide; Albert’s in Perth; and Graham’s Book Company in Sydney. Book acquisition by schools evolved mainly on a state basis. In Victoria, for example, booksellers would pre-print a list of prescribed and recommended texts which teachers would hand out to students at the end of the school year. At the beginning of the following year, pre-packed orders would be ready for collection at the bookshop. The bookseller would then donate 10 or 20 per cent of the total sales to the school as a commission. Because students did not directly receive this discount, it was often argued that booksellers were helping fund the education system. In some states the government would supply schoolbooks free of charge, in which case tenders were called from booksellers, squeezing their margins. Under another system, schools purchased at a discount from booksellers and resold to students at a lesser discount. The competition in school bookselling became so fierce that, in the economic squeeze and changing marketplace, profitability dwindled and many suppliers closed down. In 1978 John Scott Educational closed down with over a million dollars owing to publishers. It was seen as a major disaster for the book industry following the abolition of resale price maintenance. Smaller educational booksellers, on the other hand, survived by replacing price-cutting with personal service to staff and students.

University bookselling In 1950 there were only six universities in Australia and their students were adequately served by a number of large general bookshops located close to the universities. However, the growth of the student population led to specialised university bookselling. At first, universities operated their own bookshops, sometimes in conjunction with presses (for example, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland).

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Then in 1962 Collins Booksellers became the first privately owned bookseller to open a university bookshop – at the new Monash University campus – followed by Cheshire’s at LaTrobe University. This trend to private enterprise on the campus was, however, brought to a halt in the 1960s when student organisations protested at both Monash and LaTrobe. As a consequence, the leases were not renewed and student unions took over running the shops. Dissatisfied with the usual 10 per cent student discount allowable under the trade-regulated Statement of Terms, students at Sydney University adopted the ‘Harvard University Co-Op System’, forming a Sydney University Co-Operative Society. Students joined the society with a onceonly fee of five dollars, entitling them to 10 per cent discount at the time of purchase plus a share in the society’s profits at the end of the financial year, based on their book purchases.This was a legitimate way for students to bypass the Statement of Terms and get better terms than from general bookshops.The Co-Operative Society extended to other NSW universities and was also the model for an independently established society at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, with branches in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. By the end of the century, the Sydney University Co-Operative Society was operating some thirty branches.

Censorship Booksellers have endured a complicated, unsatisfactory and intrusive censorship system. Booksellers had to submit all imported book invoices to the Customs Department for verification that there were no offending titles. If a Customs officer suspected that one or two titles should be further examined, the bookseller was advised not to put these titles on sale but to submit a copy to the Customs Office. If found to be prohibited imports, the books would be seized by Customs without compensation. General censorship powers, however, were the responsibility of the states. A book banned in one state could freely circulate in another state (as occurred with The Group, for example, by Mary McCarthy).The PostmasterGeneral also had power, under the Post and Telegraph Act, to refuse to transmit certain objectionable material via the postal services. Queensland operated under the Queensland Objectionable Literature Act 1954. In Victoria,

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censorship was controlled by the Police Offences Act. In Western Australia it was the Indecent Publications Act. In South Australia and Tasmania, censorship came under the Police Offences Act and was administered by the appropriate Censorship Tribunals. To add further confusion, the terms employed to describe prohibited literature included ‘obscene’, ‘indecent’, ‘disgusting’, ‘offensive’, ‘scandalous’, ‘profane’, ‘blasphemous’, ‘libellous’, ‘immoral’ and ‘likely to deprave or corrupt’. It was almost impossible for the courts, let alone booksellers, to determine which if any of these terms applied to a particular book. Literary merit was largely ignored and, in any event, proved just as hard to define. Booksellers strongly argued for uniform censorship laws to be introduced and this led to the establishment of a Commonwealth–State Advisory Board in 1968. The fight of booksellers against censorship was highlighted by two widely publicised cases. Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) remained a banned import in Australia even after it was released for sale in the United Kingdom in 1960.Australia also banned Penguin’s transcript of The Trial of Lady Chatterley: Regina v Penguin Books Limited (1961). An enterprising Sydney bookseller, however – Alex Sheppard, of Morgan’s Bookshop – had individual pages of The Trial of Lady Chatterley sent to him by post so he and others could publish it locally, thereby escaping the Customs (Prohibited Import) Regulations. The book quickly sold out and an attempt to have him charged under state regulations failed. In 1966 Penguin Australia published a local edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, printing 100 000 copies in South Australia because the novel remained banned in Victoria. The second case was that of Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth, which was eventually released on the basis of literary merit, but not before copies were seized and losses incurred.

Tax on books In accordance with the UN Florence Agreement, ratified by Australia in the 1960s, there was no import duty on books and no sales tax on books. When the Liberal government of Malcolm Fraser proposed to introduce a 2½ per cent sales tax on books in August 1981, the industry responded with outrage. The significance of this campaign was the absolute solidarity of the whole book culture, including authors, publishers, booksellers,

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readers and the media, along with every book-related organisation. It was a monumental – and successful – campaign which, unfortunately, it was not possible to repeat in 2000. At that time the whole taxation system was changed from a wholesale tax to a broad-based 10 per cent goods and services tax (GST). In order to pass the controversial legislation, the Democrats finally reached an agreement with the government to exempt some food items, but they did not succeed in having books exempted. In return for not exempting books, the government appeased the Democrats by agreeing to provide an amount of $8 million for the promotion of books and agreed to a rebate on the sale of educational books to school booksellers. After two inquiries into the ‘high prices’ of books, it was ironical that the federal government did not hesitate to slap a tax on books for the first time in the nation’s history. The collection of GST involved booksellers in huge administrative costs. All books in stock on 1 July 2000 had to be re-priced, showing the retail price inclusive of GST. In addition, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ruled that any saving on the removed wholesale sales tax had to be applied against the 10 per cent GST. As there had never been any wholesale sales tax on books, booksellers argued that there were no savings to be applied. The ACCC, however, decreed that booksellers would have savings on promotional material, office stationery and equipment. As each bookseller had a different percentage of savings, the whole pricing exercise amounted to total and unprecedented confusion. Following the introduction of GST, profitability decreased, exacerbated by the greater administration costs.

Book clubs When resale price maintenance was in force in the United Kingdom and Australia, book clubs were able to offer prominent titles at reduced prices by producing special book club editions. The ‘World Books Club’ was established in London by William Collins, Heinemann, Macmillan, Chatto & Windus and Jonathan Cape. Collins Booksellers obtained the exclusive agency for this book club for Australia and established a separate company, World Books Pty Ltd, to operate it. Another successful

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book club in Australia was the Folio Society, represented by Morgan’s Bookshop in Sydney. The Melbourne Herald also published book club editions, and the US style of book club was promoted in Australia by Doubleday.

The future of book retailing and distribution In 1999 Australia saw the emergence of book superstores. The first was established by Collins Booksellers on Broadway, in Sydney, followed six months later by the US superstore giant, Borders, in Chapel Street, Melbourne. Borders accelerated the establishment of further superstores in both Sydney and Melbourne. UNESCO, at the World Congress on Books in London in 1982, decreed that we should never talk about the ‘future of the book’, because that phrase implied that its future was somehow in question. Instead we should talk about the ‘book in the future’, which takes for granted the book’s continuing existence but accepts that its function and influence may well change.

Case-study: Margareta Webber’s Bookshop LAUREL CLARK When Margareta Webber opened her bookshop in Melbourne in 1931, she joined a number of other small bookshops – Gino Nibbi’s Leonardo Bookshop, Cheshire’s, Everyman’s, A. H. Spencer’s Hill of Content, Parr’s, the Book Lovers Library and Bookshop, the Literature, Chaucers, Mrs Ellis Bird’s,W. P. Lineham and J. Donne. One thing that distinguished Margareta’s shop from the others was that it had no shop front. It was upstairs on the fourth floor of McEwan House at 343 Little Collins Street. The shop’s gracious and comfortable style became synonymous with her name as a bookseller. Born in Melbourne in 1891, Margareta had a passion for books, recalling that she haunted bookshops as a young girl and spent everything she had on books. In 1918 she began work with the respected antiquarian bookseller Edgar Parr who also sold new books. Parr had excellent book trade credentials, having worked for Melbourne’s pioneer bookseller and

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publisher George Robertson. During his time at Robertson & Mullens, Parr had gathered around him an admiring coterie of customers who became serious collectors. Margareta felt that Parr treated her like a daughter and friend, especially when she opened her own shop, which featured in the December 1936 edition of The Modern Store magazine. Clients described the bookshop, with its elegant antique furniture, rugs and pottery, as like a grand living room in which Margareta dispensed coffee, sherry and a good talk. There were pots by Merric Boyd – most likely purchased from the nearby Primrose Pottery Shop – and prints by Breslyn Roth. Margareta’s shop was located close to the artistic and avant garde hub of Melbourne, and Little Collins Street was a favourite with National Gallery students. As well as the Primrose Pottery, there was the Café Petrushka, the Leonardo Bookshop, Ritsies coffee shop and the studios of Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. The Modern Store article was reprinted in the prestigious London Publishers’ Circular in 1938, with the publisher Jonathan Cape remarking that the shop ‘had the best ordered, cleanest and most attractive looking stock I have ever seen in a bookshop anywhere’. He exhorted other booksellers to follow the example of the bookshop ‘down under’. Cape had visited the shop in 1935. The UK wholesaler Simpkin Marshall wrote to congratulate Margareta and offered its services. While Margareta showed flair in the choice of setting and style for her shop, she was also innovative in choosing to stock only books. At that time bookshops also ran lending libraries and sold stationery and other goods. Margareta believed that the lending of books and the selling of stationery had no place in her business, a bold statement for a bookseller. The Mullens lending library was so popular that it became known as ‘the Mudies of Melbourne’, a reference to the great English lending library. The local trade journal was the appropriately named Booksellers, Stationerys and Fancy Goods Journal which Margareta chose not to patronise. Her advertisements did, however, appear in Manuscripts: the Book Nook Miscellany, an obscure avant garde journal published in the 1930s by Harry Tatlock Miller, from his Book Nook bookshop in Geelong. Issues 12 and 13 were published from Margareta’s shop. In the association of her shop with a journal, Margareta was not alone. Elsie Bell Champion’s Book

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Lovers produced The Book Lover for twenty-two years and Gino Nibbi’s Leonardo Bookshop produced the short-lived journal Stream. In the choice of stock Margareta believed that specialisation was the secret. She took ‘a personal interest in getting the right book to the right person’. The shop’s strengths included poetry, private presses, psychology, philosophy, cooking, gardening and children’s books. In fact, one-third of the shop was devoted to children’s books because Margareta believed that taste began in childhood. She has been credited as the first Australian bookseller to set aside a special section for children’s books. Many of the prizes for school speech nights were chosen from her shop. In 1950 Margareta made a trip to London and her determination to specialise led her to contact a number of well-known publishers. These included Longmans, Jonathan Cape, Batsford, Heinemann, Hodder & Stoughton, Michael Joseph, John Murray and George Harrap. Such personal contact was undoubtedly why hers was one of the first Melbourne bookshops to stock Virginia and Leonard Woolf ’s Hogarth Press titles. She may have been one of the first to stock Penguins also. Margareta believed that women were good at bookselling and she preferred to employ women staff. She was one of a number of women booksellers in Melbourne. Elsie Bell Champion had run the Booklovers Bookshop and Library for almost forty years. Mrs Ellis Bird had taken over the running of the bookshop she had shared with her husband before his death. The Chaucers Bookshop was run by Misses Herring and Thatcher, and the Literature by Misses Bevan and Sherrington. Norma Chapman had worked at Everyman’s before being employed by Margareta. She went on to run her own business in Sydney. When Margareta sold her bookshop in 1973, she had run her business successfully for forty-two years with the help of women only. She was indeed the doyenne of women booksellers. Margareta cultivated a distinctive group of customers. She sold books to the then Melbourne Public Library, and in 1979 a special book plate was printed to mark the Library’s long association with the shop. The kitchen ‘library’ of John and Sunday Reed at Heidi contained books with her special sticker. Members of the ‘Heidi’ group were no doubt customers. Barry Jones visited the shop when quite young at the recommendation of his elocution teacher and remained a devoted customer.

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The writer Marjorie Tipping remembered other customers like George Bell, Arnold Shore,Vance and Nettie Palmer, all members of Melbourne’s literary and art circles. The art publisher Sydney Ure Smith and writer Mary Grant Bruce were also customers. Margareta held launches, and poetry readings by John Shaw Neilson were also held there. Manning Clark was always grateful for the sherry he was offered and which persuaded him to buy books when he was a poor student. The attention Margareta paid to satisfying individuals’ needs was reminiscent of the coterie that Parr gathered around him. It is not surprising that ‘the old upstairs bookshop’ as it became affectionately known was also described as a literary salon in the guise of a bookshop. For this is what Margareta surely intended. NOTE ON SOURCES L. Clark, ‘Aspects of Melbourne book trade history: innovation and specialisation in the careers of F. F. Bailliere and Margareta Webber’, Monash University MA thesis, 1997; and A Touch of Montparnasse: Three Avant Garde Cultural Centres in Victoria – The Book Lovers, The Leonardo and The Book Nook, Canberra, Mulini Press, 1994.

Case-study:The Little Bookroom ALBERT ULLIN It was only when I decided it was time to relinquish ownership of my ‘baby’ and my passionate love affair with The Little Bookroom that customers and friends told me they considered the shop to be an institution. Finally it dawned on me that what I had created was important and of value to others. How was it to be sold and to whom? After all, The Little Bookroom had the stamp of my personal style on it, and it would be daunting for someone else to take it over. Fortunately, three female members of my staff came to the rescue and bought the name and the business. Since I had trained them, they knew what the expectations were and it would enable them to give The Little Bookroom a younger, fresher approach. My introduction to children’s literature followed many years training as a bookseller in Melbourne, with stints in England and Switzerland, returning to join Speagle’s Bookshop as the schools and library rep.

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When the ‘seven-year itch’ took hold of me, I decided to start a children’s bookshop in the city. In July 1960 I began to work from home, selling mainly to public libraries. A few months later I walked into the beautiful nineteenth-century Metropole Arcade and found a ‘To Let’ sign on the window of the end shop, which was next to Kenneth Hince’s antiquarian bookshop. ‘The Little Bookroom’ came from a much loved book of mine, a collection of modern fairy stories written by award-winning author Eleanor Farjeon in 1955 and charmingly illustrated by the renowned English artist Edward Ardizzone. I wrote to Eleanor Farjeon about using the title for my bookshop, and to my delight received her blessing in time for the opening on Thursday, 13 October 1960. A little later, Ted Ardizzone sent me a drawing which was to become the logo for all my advertising. I loved its feeling of warmth and cosiness which suited the shop’s atmosphere. Eleanor Farjeon tells lovingly of the dusty room of her childhood, called by the family ‘The Little Bookroom’, filled with many treasures. My own wish was to share with children and their families the richness of the world’s children’s literature. Thank heavens for the enthusiasm and the sheer bravado of youth. With the exception of Frank Eyre, the children’s editor at Oxford University Press, publishers said such a venture was doomed to fail. However, Frank suggested that even if this pioneering experiment did not take off, I was still young, and would surely find another job in the book trade. To let people know I was about to open a children’s bookshop, I cheekily went to see a journalist at the Age and told him my story. To my surprise and delight an article and photograph appeared in the ‘News of the Day’ column next day, the opening day of the shop. I had been told that readers always read the front page, the sports page and ‘that newsy column’. From that first day until Christmas, my tiny shop was filled to overflowing with curious people. In the 1960s, with the exception of Puffins, all children’s books were hardbacks. During this period the Australian children’s novel became a force, begun in the 1950s mainly by two progressive companies – Angus & Robertson and Oxford University Press under Frank Eyre (though OUP commissioned English illustrators whose line drawings were often inappropriate). Authors included Mavis Thorpe Clark and Nan Chauncy, as well as Joan Phipson, Ivan Southall, Hesba Brinsmead, Colin Thiele,

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Eleanor Spence and Patricia Wrightson. In 1962 Lloyd O’Neil began an innovative but short-lived project to publish quality children’s fiction and non-fiction, available on subscription under the imprint of the Children’s Library Guild of Australia, in association with Lansdowne Press and F. W. Cheshire. Though there had been a Children’s Book Council Picture Book Award since 1946, it was not until the 1974 award to Ron Brooks for his unique illustrations for The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek, with text by Jenny Wagner, that the Australian picture book came into significance. In that year the Council also commended The Giant Devil Dingo by Dick Roughsey, the first book by an Aboriginal author/illustrator. The industry owes gratitude to Anne Bower Ingram (who became the children’s editor for William Collins in 1971) for her vision and to Collins for believing that children’s books are important. After the Karmel Report into schools and libraries, the federal government began to pour money into the purchase of books and also provided money for multiculturalism and minority groups. This gave me the idea for a foreign language bookshop, which was opened by Al Grassby in 1974. Some fourteen major language groups were represented, from Maltese to Vietnamese, South American and Spanish. Soon some enterprising publishers began producing picture books in bilingual editions. The 1970s was a boom period for booksellers and also saw the proliferation of children’s paperbacks. I began to import new paperback series from a number of US publishers which catered for the teenage market. Especially popular were novels from Dell, many dealing with ‘problem’ issues that teenagers face, such as divorce, drugs, death, teen pregnancy, disabilities, sexuality and minority groups. This genre soon emerged in Australia as well, particularly in the 1980s. Not surprisingly, by 1987 the Children’s Book Council had introduced a category for ‘Older Readers’, with a warning that some of these books might be for mature readers only. Earlier, in 1982, the CBC had established an award for ‘Younger Readers’ to encourage writers to produce more titles in the seven-to-ten age group.This led to a dramatic increase in the publication of fine books for this age group. In 1988 the CBC established the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. The first recipient was Nadia Wheatley for her highly original

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and timely book in the year of our bicentenary, My Place, illustrated by Donna Rawlins. Since then, the standard of creative non-fiction titles continues to grow. The excellence of our writers and illustrators has also found favour with overseas publishers. The changes over forty years have been enormous. Where once the hardback was favoured, today paperbacks sell best. Diversification has become necessary for survival.‘Add-on’ sales from non-book materials such as audio-cassettes, videos, soft toys, cards and posters have also helped. The buying patterns of teachers and public librarians have changed, and now it is essential to visit them at their institutions. The emergence of suburban shopping centres began to erode the traditional book retailers’ sales, since it was no longer necessary to come to the CBD. Chain stores added to the woes of independents. Retailers such as department stores added children’s book departments, and remainder shops also began to appear, with their lower prices making them very appealing. Meanwhile other outlets gave discounts on lead titles and often even on classic series. The battle for survival continues into the twenty-first century with the arrival of Borders superstores from the United States. These not only stock many American and other overseas titles not previously seen in Australia but also provide the added attraction of allowing customers to ‘borrow’ books from the shelves while relaxing with coffee and food. Computer shopping on the Internet allows ready access to giants such as Amazon Books. Nevertheless, with all these attractive temptations luring customers away from traditional, independent and specialist shops, some have survived because of their personalised service and product knowledge. Hopefully, book buyers will continue to support these shops. Postscript: The Little Bookroom celebrated its forty-fifth birthday in late 2005 with a relocation to 771 Nicholson Street, Carlton. NOTE ON SOURCES Jeff Prentice, The Little Bookroom:Where Children’s Books Live [forthcoming]; June Torcasio, ‘Opening Magic Casements: Children’s Bookshops in Melbourne, 1945–93’, 1996 MA thesis, Monash University.

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Case-study: Collins Booksellers MICHAEL ZIFCAK Collins Booksellers commenced operations in 1922 as a newsagency at 622 Collins Street, Melbourne. Founded by Frederick Henry (Harry) Slamen, it was registered as a company in 1929 under the name ‘Collins Book Depot Proprietary Limited’. Its location in Collins Street inspired the company name. Under the astute management of Harry Slamen, two more newsagencies were opened, one at 361 Swanston Street (opposite the Public Library), operated by Ron Steel, a close associate of Harry Slamen, and another in the Australia Arcade, which connected Collins Street to Little Collins Street. Progressively, books were added to the merchandise mix and a proper bookshop was opened in 1933 at 93 Elizabeth Street, in the Colonial Mutual Building on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets. The bookshop was managed by Charles Dickens (his real name), who joined Collins from the Elizabeth Street bookseller, Robertson & Mullens. When Dickens left the company, Maurie Craven took over the management of the shop. Craven was known as the ‘walking encyclopedia’ of Australiana. He attracted and maintained a large and very loyal customer base, retiring in 1991. In 1950 I joined the company, having fled Communist Czechoslovakia. By that time, Collins operated four outlets, and the postwar economic boom provided plenty of opportunities for expansion. In 1952 the Hill of Content Bookshop, at 86 Bourke Street, Melbourne, foundered. Owned and operated by the legendary bookman A. H. (Bertie) Spencer, the renowned bookshop was advertised for sale. Collins, having bought the freehold, also acquired the bookselling business. The detailed history of the Hill of Content Bookshop was written by A. H. Spencer and published in 1959 by Angus & Robertson. The book, now out of print, brings to life not only the early achievements of A. H. Spencer but the significant contribution the Hill of Content Bookshop made to the literary scene of the time. Spencer chose the name to signify that whoever entered the shop would find contentment. Collins continued in Spencer’s footsteps and adopted the philosophy and culture of the shop. No. 86 Bourke Street became Collins head office and registered office.

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In December 1961 the founder and managing director of Collins Book Depot was killed in a car accident. I was appointed general manager and then managing director, supported by Ron Steel, Ron Dyer, Susan Alberti and Maurie Craven. With the encouragement of the Slamen Estate, the company solicitors and company accountant (and the bank), Collins embarked on a cautious expansion program. Branches were opened at 144 Swanston Street, at a newsagency outlet in the Degraves Street subway, and at the Southern Cross Hotel in Exhibition Street. Studying bookselling trends on trips to the United States and the United Kingdom, I discovered the fastest-growing and most profitable area was university bookselling, with its captive customer base. In 1962 Collins was granted a five-year licence to operate a bookshop at the newly established Monash University. The first manager was John Powers, later a successful author and playwright. Attempts to secure bookshops at LaTrobe University and at the ANU in Canberra failed, mainly due to the trade restrictions capping discounts to students. As discussed earlier, the Sydney University Co-Operative Society got around these restrictions by giving students an annual rebate. Collins continued to pursue university bookselling. When RMIT in Melbourne registered itself as a Co-Operative Society, competing with the Collins branch across the road in Swanston Street, Collins registered its own ‘Collins Co-Operative Society’ to service students and staff. After the abolition of resale price maintenance in 1972, restrictions on student discounts were removed, but the Collins campus concessions were not renewed and most universities operated their own bookshops. In the United States at the time, only Doubleday and Brentano’s were genuine chain operations. Brentano’s, in fact, was one of the first shopping mall bookshops in Maryland, outside Washington. I spent a week in Brentano’s head office in New York, and on my return drew up an expansion plan for new branches in the then-developing shopping centres, starting in 1966 at Northland, a Myer-owned centre, followed by a Westfield centre at Doncaster. In both centres, Collins secured a licence to sell lottery tickets, which on Saturdays attracted up to 7000 customers, quickly wearing out the carpet leading to the back of the shop and preventing genuine book customers from browsing. After operating the lottery kiosks for ten years, Collins sold them at a handsome goodwill figure, which was immediately invested in new Melbourne bookshops.

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The rapid expansion of the business in the 1970s necessitated the restructure of the head office management team, and in 1972 Peter Shaw was appointed general manager. Shelley Roberts took over sales and marketing, and Joel Fulton became group buyer, while Bill McLennan took charge of expansion in New South Wales.When Peter Shaw resigned in 1988, Shelley Roberts and Joel Fulton were appointed to the Board. In order to become a national chain, Collins would have to expand interstate, and branches were opened in Parramatta, Hornsby, Newcastle, Campbelltown and Tweed Heads, followed by centres in Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT. Collins was also on the lookout for existing bookshops. In 1972 Bob and Jack Griffiths approached Collins with an offer to acquire their real estate and educational bookselling business at 96–98 Ryrie Street in Geelong, established in 1925 by their father, William Joseph Griffiths. ‘Griffiths in Geelong’ was a legendary bookshop like the acclaimed ‘Hill of Content’. In 1976 Collins Book Depot was renamed Collins Booksellers Pty Ltd. When a New Zealand chain, London Book Stores, expanded to Australia and failed, Collins took over its four shops. Then David Jones in Sydney announced that it would establish a chain of twenty freestanding bookshops. Some went ahead but were taken over by Collins, which also acquired stores at Hornsby, Miranda and Turramurra. From the failing Graham’s Bookshops, Collins took over Bankstown in Sydney and Tuggeranong in the ACT. From Jean Ferguson (a prominent book trade identity), the well-regarded Coddington’s Bookshop in Wollongong was taken over by Collins, as was a Mary Martin outlet in Canberra. In addition to new branches in shopping centres, Collins continued to expand on three more fronts: book clubs, franchising and airport bookselling. To follow the book club trend in the United States, Collins obtained the exclusive agency for the UK World Books Club, the Australian membership increasing from 3000 to 17 000 within three years. Collins embraced franchising on the simple philosophy that it would treat franchisees as its own branches. At one stage, half of Collins branches were company-owned and half were franchised. Collins opted for franchisees mainly in country towns, where owner-operated bookshops had a better chance of success. When Collins entered airport bookselling in 1992–93, it added in excess of $15 million turnover, with shops at the international terminals in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

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In 1999 Collins opened the first Australian superstore, on Broadway in Sydney, occupying more than 2000 square metres and carrying some 90 000 titles. Borders opened a store six months later in Melbourne’s fashionable Chapel Street and continued opening bookshops in existing shopping centres, thereby providing considerable competition to Collins, Angus & Robertson and Dymocks. The company’s involvement in book industry affairs provided leadership in the Australian Booksellers Association, the International Booksellers Federation, the National Book Council and UNESCO. In the year 2000 – just before my retirement from the company – Collins was recognised by Business Review Weekly as one of the top 500 private companies in Australia. [In 2005 a financial crisis at Collins led to the sell-off of companyowned stores.]

Case-study: Gordon & Gotch DENIS CRYLE Wartime shortages of paper and labour had forced publishers to reduce formats, but postwar affluence and education laid the basis for the expansion of Australia’s book industry. As an established distributor of books, magazines and paper, Gordon & Gotch was able to benefit from the expansion of local titles. Its prime focus remained with imported British and increasingly Australian cultural goods, including relatively expensive reference and educational books (including dictionaries and encyclopedias) which were heavily marketed and widely acquired by Australian households. With a warehouse network in all Australian states and across New Zealand, Gordon & Gotch successfully resumed its traditional pre-eminence as a magazine distributor, complemented by its book and stationery outlets which were strategically located in capital cities. After a century of operations, Gordon & Gotch in 1953 celebrated its ongoing success with a commemorative publication honouring its founders and confirming its postwar growth. At this time, the company boasted capital reserves of £650 000 and paid dividends of 20 per cent. Its distribution networks extended beyond metropolitan libraries, railway bookstalls and retailers to include more distant outlets like the newsagencies and

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general stores of regional and rural Australia, using various combinations of sea, rail and road transport. In comprehensively addressing problems of distance which beset the burgeoning Australian book industry, it had some cause for self-congratulation. Nevertheless, along with other distributors, it remained vulnerable to disruption by transport strikes, notably in the immediate postwar years but also in the late 1970s and 1980s when economic and industrial uncertainty returned. The firm’s commemorative volume stressed its hard-won reputation for delivering to all points on the continent, an ethos compounded by its willingness to devise emergency transport procedures. During a 1951 rail strike, for example, Gordon & Gotch arranged for ‘leading Agents in each town to take delivery of their supplies at an arranged rendezvous outside the picket lines’. Such an extensive distribution system, however, was prohibitively costly for small Australian publishers, most of whom were unable to afford either their own distribution or Gordon & Gotch’s. Glenda Korporaal has estimated that distribution costs continue to make up ‘50 to 70 per cent of the retail price of a book in Australia’, and that, of this figure, up to 50 per cent remains with the distributor. The role of Gordon & Gotch in sustaining the dominance of British publishing to the detriment of locally written and produced books was of special concern during the upsurge of cultural nationalism in the late 1960s and 1970s. By this time, Australian books made up 40 per cent of retail turnover. While the local industry had some success in attracting increased Literature Board support and in dismantling the Traditional Market Agreement, distribution problems continued. The newly formed Australian Independent Publishers Association (AIPA) took up the cause on behalf of smaller presses, advocating the establishment of an Australian-owned and government-supported cooperative. However, a series of agencies and experiments during the 1970s proved commercially unviable, and in 1984 Michael Denholm renewed calls for government intervention and for an investigation into the feasibility of using government bookshops to assist small Australian publishers. In spite of the perennial problems experienced by Australian distributors, Gordon & Gotch was well placed to consolidate and expand during the 1970s and 1980s, not least because of its extensive magazine business, its non-traditional outlets for mass paperbacks, and because of the

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rationalisation of the book industry itself. In 1977 Gordon & Gotch’s Australian operations returned a pre-tax profit of $4 million. Within the book industry, it undertook a series of initiatives, purchasing the retailing operations of Angus & Robertson in January 1979 and then securing the rights to distribute for Rigby in Australasia. By 1983 Gordon & Gotch controlled almost a hundred Angus & Robertson outlets, some of which had begun to specialise in games and videos. At the same time Gordon & Gotch diversified into newspapers (Queensland Press Ltd) and television (Associated Broadcasting Services), acquiring a 10 per cent interest in the funding of the popular miniseries based on Nancy Cato’s novel All the Rivers Run. In other respects, its economic performance appeared mixed. It acquired a 20 per cent interest in the UK Gordon & Gotch before being bought out by the Herald and Weekly Times group. Although its financial return from books increased by 25 per cent in the mid-1980s, due largely to the acquisition of Angus & Robertson, Gordon & Gotch’s paper and stationery divisions were losing money and this traditional arm of the company was shut down. Increasingly, Gordon & Gotch’s distribution and book retailing networks made it attractive for takeover, as the relentless integration of book and publishing industries gave rise to international conglomerates by the late 1980s. Even with the burgeoning Angus & Robertson network, book distribution and retailing constituted only a fraction of annual turnover compared with magazine distribution. Consequently, its relationship with large magazine publishers like Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press (ACP) remained critical, if somewhat uneasy. In 1982, for example, Packer threatened to divert ACP’s longstanding arrangements with Gordon & Gotch to Murray Publishers, its in-house distributor. In the event, Gordon & Gotch was able to retain most of the ACP titles and offset potential losses through expanded book revenue. If Gordon & Gotch’s proximity to the Herald and Weekly Times group posed problems for customers who were the Herald group’s media rivals, the spectacular takeover of Herald and Weekly Times by Murdoch’s News Corporation in 1987, coupled with Murdoch’s acquisition of British and American publishers, precipitated a massive shake-up of the industry. By the end of the decade Gordon & Gotch, along with Angus & Robertson, was absorbed into a truly global publishing giant.

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After the initial 1987 takeover by News Corporation, Angus & Robertson fared better than Gordon & Gotch during the next round of changes. Although Gordon & Gotch retained distribution rights to magazines and books, including those of rival UK publisher Reed Books and a range of smaller Australian publishers, the trend internationally was towards inhouse book distribution, to the disadvantage of wholesalers. After Murdoch’s HarperCollins conglomerate was created in January 1989, News Corporation’s debt levels soared. In the ensuing sell-off of newly acquired assets, HarperCollins proposed to dispose of $500 million in Australia, including Gordon & Gotch, Bay Books and Golden Press. In the event, the newly formed Australian HarperCollins division set up its own international distribution network, retaining Angus & Robertson along with Golden Press as a national distributor at the expense of Gordon & Gotch. In 1990 Gordon & Gotch’s magazine distribution business was sold to Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), further fragmenting its traditional operations in the process. A New Zealand company 49 per cent owned by News Corporation, INL purchased Gordon & Gotch for $82 million, but a decade of declining profitability followed. In 1999 Gordon & Gotch was further dismembered when INL sold off its Australian operations to another former News company PMP (Pacific Magazines and Printing) for $20 million, retaining only its New Zealand operations. Under PMP, Gordon & Gotch’s fortunes continued to ebb. In 2001 it recorded losses of up to $15 million, creating problems for PMP in a proposed venture with Kerry Stokes’ Seven Network, aimed at maximising cross-media promotional opportunities. With the Australian book industry facing uncertainty in the wake of the GST and the 2000 Olympics slump in trading, Gordon & Gotch underwent yet another restructure in September 2001 when its Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth warehouses were closed, with staff losses of 120. Although it retained a ten-year magazine contract for a joint venture company, Pacific Publications, Gordon & Gotch’s fortunes had clearly waned. Despite a significant contribution in the immediate postwar decades, Gordon & Gotch, itself an international operator for 150 years, had paradoxically declined at the whim of new international markets.

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NOTE ON SOURCES Gordon & Gotch, Years to Remember:The Story of Gordon & Gotch, Gordon & Gotch Australasia Limited, 1953; Gordon & Gotch, Annual Reports; Australian Book Trade Working Party, The Australian Book Trade Report, St Lucia, UQP, 1975; Glenda Korporaal, Project Octopus, Redfern, Australian Society of Authors, 1990; Denis Cryle, ‘Culture and Commerce: Gordon & Gotch Ltd in Australasia 1890–1940’, Publishing Studies; John Curtain, ‘Distance Makes the Market Fonder: The Development of Book Publishing in Australia’, Media Culture and Society, vol. 15, no. 2 April 1993, pp. 233–44; Kylee Bristow, ‘Distribution – The Fatal Flaw?’, Publishing Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp. 36–44; Michael Denholm, ‘Book Distribution in Australia:The Problem and Its Solution’, Australian Book Review, February–March 1984, pp. 27–28. Penny Steen and Belinda Berry assisted with research.

Case-study: Bookworld – Where You Never Pay Full Price TERRY HERBERT Bookworld really began when a menswear store closed in K-Mart Plaza, Toowoomba, where I had owned three newsagencies, the last with a Toyworld incorporated in it. A hot-bread shop in the centre had closed and become a small, temporary discount bookshop run by Bevan King, who erected large signs advertising 10 to 70 per cent off all books. I was livid, so I went to Gordon & Gotch and William Collins and bought their returns to sell at half price in my newsagency. Eventually I secured a lease on the former bread shop and moved my Toyworld into it. This allowed me to stock more books in my newsagency. Bookworld was established in 1980 when the menswear store closed and all the books were moved out of the newsagency. I had already discovered the importance of advertising, having produced three Toyworld colour catalogues a year. The surge of business when these were letterbox-dropped was tremendous. I had also noticed how much sales of newspapers and magazines increased when a television campaign was on. So, even at this early stage, advertising was at the forefront of my thinking. In the toyshop, swing sets were advertised cheap in the middle of winter at half-price and sold out, so I realised that books which had been overlooked in their first releases could be given another chance to sell too. Advertising on television in Toowoomba was also cheap at the time, so all three stores were featured in television advertisements.

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Bookworld started out as a remainder and promotional bookstore, expanding to Ipswich with a range of toys, books and records. In 1982 David Dodd, a school friend who had been my first business partner in a coffee shop when we were fifteen, joined me to buy an existing shop at Indooroopilly Shoppingtown in Brisbane. The store’s takings the week before we took over were $5000.The only changes we made were to add stock and bright signs, and we took $20 000 in the first week of trading. I visited the United States that year, looking at toy stores and bookshops, with an idea to expand one way or the other. At the time, a chain called Crown had an advertisement which caught my eye: ‘If you paid full price you didn’t buy it at Crown’. I came back and started to use this slogan and then we abbreviated it to ‘Bookworld – where you never pay full price’. During 1982 and 1983 we were also approached to open new stores. All the time we were changing our fixtures and signage, trying to improve, and coming up with a better, brighter look. We always had our own warehouse, which enabled us to purchase remainders and specials in bulk. When we became overstocked, one solution was to open another store, since sales in the first month were always incredible, generating cash flow and solving the stock problem. In December 1983 we opened in Post Office Square in Brisbane, which was an outstanding success, allowing us to expand into another six to eight shops. This was a turning point, since to that stage we had not dealt with publishers like Penguin, who refused to give us a reasonable discount. That all changed and we expanded our frontlist and backlist extensively after this, all the time offering 10 to 80 per cent off the recommended price. At this point, advertising, wages and occupancy were each costing 7 per cent of turnover. Advertising was kept at that percentage until we sold to Brash’s in 1990.The distribution of more than a dozen eight-page catalogues a year increased turnover by 30 to 40 per cent, depending on the store location. We were advertising on television at least twice a month, increasing to weekly at Christmas time, and the Sunday Mail and TV magazines were also used to support campaigns. Most advertised lines were our own remainder buys, promotional reprints exclusive to Bookworld, or special offers on ‘hot’ Christmas and Father’s Day lines. At no time did we advertise anything on which we could be under-cut in price, preferring exclusivity.

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I travelled overseas to buy three times a year, mainly to England and the United States, with an annual trip to New Zealand. We would highlight the publisher with the most returns each Christmas and approach them for remainders in March or June. In the 1980s there was a great deal of rationalisation in publishing: Rigby moved to Lansdowne; Lansdowne closed distribution; Angus & Robertson amalgamated with William Collins; Mills & Boon went in and out of hard covers; William Collins closed all its state warehouses; and four other companies – Queensland Magazines & Books, All Books, Axiom Queensland and the Gordon & Gotch Book Division – closed their doors. These changes gave Bookworld great opportunities for buying. The best remainders were bestsellers published once too often. In 1987 or 1988 we embarked on selling exclusive reprints, many times in conjunction with Angus & Robertson, and often exclusive to Bookworld. These included What Bird Is That, Banjo Paterson, Greatest Island and the Young Australia series. We had exclusive rights in Queensland where we were based. We also did exclusive deals with Bison Books, Quarto, Colour Library and Salamander, as well as arranging exclusive reprints with Octopus and Tiger. While advertising and buying were great contributors to our success, the main contribution was made by the people we managed to bring together in head office and, most importantly, the various store managers and their staff. Managers did not work on Thursday nights or weekends, and in most cases lived close to their stores. We were fortunate in acquiring staff from Myer and other retailers with excellent training schemes.We learned the importance of using a training manual, not only to train managers but also to teach staff how to handle customers. We ran workshops and had a conference once a year which was attended by most publishers. This helped bring the team together. At Christmas everyone in the organisation received a bonus and a present, even if they had started only one month earlier. David and I tried to deliver as much as we could personally. We ran competitions for the stores regularly, awarding overseas holidays, attendance at US book fairs, and balloon and helicopter rides. A large number of Bookworld people still work in the industry. It was one of my saddest days when I left Angus & Robertson Bookworld and our loyal team. Expansion had increased our need for further capital

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which in turn made us attractive to potential buyers. In 1989, after being approached by about six different groups, we sold a 55 per cent share in the business to Paul Hamlyn, probably the world’s most successful mass-market publisher. We then expanded into three other states and Canberra, adding an extra nineteen stores in one year. This took its toll on human resources and affected profitability. In 1990 Brash’s purchased Angus & Robertson from Newscorp and decided to approach us to amalgamate the two retail groups. At first we believed that Bookworld was to be run as a separate business; however, a week before the takeover, Brash’s informed me that we were to amalgamate. I believe this was a great mistake. During the six months I stayed with the company, Angus & Robertson personnel resented the changes, including the removal of their head office to Queensland. After I left, there was resentment among Bookworld staff about the Angus & Robertson culture. We should have continued to run the two chains as separate businesses. Under the new regime, discounts were no longer offered on books, prices rose on remainders and specials, and the advertising budget was slashed in search of profit. Sales were good for that first Christmas, after which most Bookworld stores suffered, making a number of highly successful stores suddenly unprofitable. I have observed, with great interest, the strategies and policies of all the owners of Bookworld since the amalgamation: Graham Hart’s, Whitcoulls, American Blue Star and WH Smith from the United Kingdom. At Christmas 2001 it was refreshing to see Angus & Robertson Bookworld advertising many exclusives or ‘great price’ offers. Bookselling has certainly changed. Now Target, Big W and Kmart command so much of the market for certain new releases (such as the Guinness Book of Records or Bryce Courtenay’s novels) that it is very hard to compete if you are a franchise or an independent. I believe that any bookseller who has one of these big retailers as a neighbour and is hoping to market such bestsellers should seek to prevent its regular customers from shopping in these stores by matching price.

REACHING READERS

CHAPTER 9

Beyond Bestsellers Emma Hegarty Australians are enthusiastic book buyers, yet our rate of book publication is one of the lowest in the developed world. Publishing is not a risktaking industry. Not only does it have low profit margins, but the highest returns of unsold stock come from bestsellers. It is an industry that relies on traditional wisdom: that imported blockbusters, cookbooks and biographies are popular in Australia, that unknown fiction writers are hard to sell, and that bookshop customers are ageing and predominantly female. Until recently, publishers did not pay much attention to statistics on bestsellers, apart perhaps from their own company records. In 2001 the computerised sales monitoring system BookTrack (later Nielsen BookScan) was introduced into most Australian bookshops. It produces up-to-the-minute sales figures for all titles sold in those shops using the system. Before this system was introduced, the recording of bestseller statistics in Australia was informal and not much utilised by publishers or booksellers. Every year from 1983 to 1999 the Australian Publishers Association (APA) surveyed its members about their bestselling titles.The sales figures in these lists were sent to all APA members. They were divided into adult fiction, adult non-fiction and children’s books, and each category was separated into hardback and paperback. From these surveys (although not very precise), as well as from the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures on the publishing industry 1994–2000, some significant long-term trends become apparent. Looking

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back over the pre-BookScan bestseller lists, it is possible to see what has been valued as knowledge and entertainment, and also to see opportunities that publishers found – or perhaps missed.With few exceptions, book publishers do not conduct their own market research. Such bestseller lists therefore are a guide to buying patterns. With accurate, current sales figures becoming available, the industry – or those publishers who can afford BookScan – can now respond more rapidly to market demand.

Adult non-fiction The consistently popular genres for non-fiction paperbacks between 1983 and 1999 were gardening, cookery, health, parenting and biography, while sport became more popular in the 1990s. Later in the decade the genres of motivation, self-help and finance and investment also became popular. At this time there was strong growth for both overseas and local titles. The popularity of Australian titles, however, grew at three times the rate of imported titles. Non-fiction bestsellers in hardback were surveyed by the APA for the years 1991 to 1999, a period of steady growth for bestselling titles. The reliable genres of cookery, biography, sport and travel remained popular. As with paperbacks, the market for Australian hardback non-fiction titles was much stronger than for overseas titles. Larger publishers began to release more new Australian titles, but with smaller print runs. Given the unpredictability of overseas non-fiction titles, it is not surprising that publishers have focused on Australian non-fiction. And since these titles are welcomed by readers in either hardback or paperback, publishers have decided to promote the more profitable sector of paperbacks. In the 1990s the market for Australian non-fiction in hardback also grew, though publishers chose to reduce production in this format.

Adult fiction The fiction bestsellers in paperback surveyed from 1983 to 1999 show clearly that many overseas authors but very few Australian writers have achieved this highly marketable status. In the late 1990s, however, large publishing companies decided to inject many more new Australian fiction titles into the market than ever before. Levels for fiction bestsellers

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in hardback during the 1990s were steady, although, somewhat curiously, publishers were sensitive about their production levels and suppressed their statistics. Though Australian fiction in paperback seemed about to flourish in the late 1990s, publishers moved to reduce their new fiction releases, particularly those by first-time authors. It is possible that publishers will pull back from the less profitable hardback area and turn their enthusiasm to Australian paperback fiction, but at present the trends for hardback and paperback fiction are similar. While Australian fiction is nowhere near as popular as Australian non-fiction, the pre-GST indications were that both publishers and readers still have a healthy appetite for fiction.

Children’s books Children’s bestsellers in paperback were surveyed by the APA from 1985 to 1999, with many genres entering the lists, including novels, picture books, classic stories, illustrated non-fiction and television tie-ins. A small number of large publishing companies dominated this area. Sales of Australian titles were strong but sales of imported titles dropped during the 1990s. Re-issued titles performed well, presumably because the children’s market continuously provides new readers with old favourites. The sales patterns demonstrate consumer loyalty to favourite authors. Publishers’ decisions demonstrate a keen awareness of the market in this sector, perhaps because it is a specialised field in the hands of relatively few publishers. It could also appear from the ABS figures that publishers are disproportionately favouring Australian books, as their numbers are increasing; however, the strongest improvers in children’s book sales in general are imported paperbacks. When it comes to the bestseller statistics, Australian books succeed almost to the exclusion of imported books. During the 1990s, the stand-out children’s bestsellers in hardback were re-issued titles. The lists were dominated by picture books for young children and by Australian classic storybooks. Novels for older readers were rarely bestsellers, but in the late 1990s it was novels which topped the lists. The number of Australian bestsellers was steady, but the number of imported titles rose substantially. As a result of these sales patterns, the

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proportion of Australian books on the bestseller lists fell throughout the 1990s. For the period covered by ABS statistics, production and import levels of children’s hardbacks did not much change. Publishers tried to support local titles, but consumers did not. Then in 1998 sales of imported children’s hardbacks grew significantly, and not just at the bestseller level. The upshot for local publishers was an over-abundance of Australian hardback children’s books in stock. In the coming years either the market for Australian children’s hardbacks will have to grow or publishers will have to reduce production.

Conclusions Australian publishers make more money from local titles than from imported titles, yet the statistics indicate that publishers seem nervous about accepting new Australian titles. Briefly, in 1997–98, publisher confidence in Australian works grew and many new titles were released. After that, in a rapid response to the decline in fiction sales, the number of new Australian fiction titles dropped dramatically. While the number of new non-fiction titles also fell, the number has remained comparatively steady. From the fluctuating production figures, however, the greatest degree of publisher uncertainty was in Australian paperbacks for children. The introduction of the goods and services tax (GST) in 2000 caused a dramatic drop in book sales. Books had not previously been taxed at any stage of production or sale, so the GST meant a retail price rise of at least 10 per cent, and a new administrative burden for printers, publishers and booksellers.The industry appears to be taking many years to bounce back from this disturbance. The improved sales monitoring made possible by BookScan will enable publishers to monitor sales patterns in quite specific ways, such as by genres, author or region. Whereas the APA statistics were released annually, months after the period surveyed, statistics are now available weekly. Postscript: According to the Weekend Australian (22–23 October 2005), on the basis of Bowker’s Global Books in Print database, 375 000 new English-language books were published during 2004, with the biggest increases in children’s and young adult titles (up one-third compared

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with the previous year). Technology, science and computer titles, however, continued to decrease. NOTE ON SOURCES Australian Bureau of Statistics: Book publishers 1995–96, key figures, doc. 1363.0 (1997); Book publishers 1997–98, 1363.0 (1999); Book publishers 2000–2001, 1363.0 (2002); Australian Publishers Association 1983–99, annual bestsellers survey; Department of Communications and the Arts: ‘Australian Book Publishing 1994’, Cultural Trends in Australia, no. 2, 1996, and ‘Australian Book Publishing 1995–96’, Cultural Trends in Australia, no. 5, 1997; Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, ‘Australian Book Publishing 1997–98’, Cultural Trends i n Australia, no. 9, 1999.

Case-study: Periodicals DAVID CARTER AND ROGER OSBORNE In a print culture where book publishing is small-scale and sporadic, periodicals will assume a larger significance, especially for writers who, unlike readers, must rely primarily on local outlets. ‘Periodical publication’ covers magazines, reviews and journals. The array of terms suggests the diversity of periodical forms, from the commercial to the scholarly and avant-garde. Australian periodical publication after the war shows a move away from independent commercial magazines and a progressive consolidation around, on the one hand, quarterly reviews and, on the other, commercial magazines owned by large media organisations. In 1946, when the market for freelance writers remained reasonably diverse and remunerative, individual careers were pursued across the range of magazines. That year, for example, George Farwell, president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, published in Poetry, Walkabout, Progress, Talk and Fellowship, edited Australian New Writing and the Australasian Book News, and reviewed books for ABC radio. For Meanjin’s editor, C. B. Christesen, 1945 had been ‘the worst year in the history of the Australian publishing and printing industry’. But despite paper shortages, industrial disruptions and censorship, periodical publishing, like book publishing, could benefit from wartime restrictions on imported publications. Stimulated by a sense of cultural crisis and opportunity, a significant number of magazines appeared during the war. Those which continued beyond 1945 include Australia: National

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Journal (1939–47), Southerly (1939– ), Angry Penguins (1940–46), A Comment (1940–47), Meanjin (1940– ), Pertinent (1940–47), Poetry (1941–47), Salt (1941–46), Australian New Writing (1943–46), Barjai (1943–47), Australian Woman’s Digest (1944–48), Fellowship (1944–48), The Writer (1944–48), Australia’s Progress (1945–46) and Bohemia (1945–67). New magazines launched in 1946 included Angry Penguins Broadsheet (1946), Australian Books (1946–48), the Australasian Book News and Library Journal (1946–48), Talk (1946–48), View (renamed Focus, 1946–48), Twentieth Century (1946–75) and Vista (1946–63), the last two Catholic journals of ideas. However, as the dates also show, casualty rates in the years following the war were high. For George Mackaness, despite the existence of ‘half a dozen small cultural magazines’ the country still needed a ‘real critical journal . . . an authoritative monthly journal, a Fortnightly, a Munsey, an Atlantic, a Harpers’. Popular commercial magazines in 1946 included monthlies like the Australian Journal and Man and weeklies such as Australasian Post, Smith’s Weekly, Pix, Australian Women’s Weekly and the Listener-In. All carried ‘literary’ features: book news, author profiles, Australiana, essays, reviews, travel sketches and fiction, and all provided paying space for local writers. The Bulletin was more middlebrow. Its long-running Red Page, edited since 1940 by Douglas Stewart, continued as a ‘magazine within a magazine’ and spanned the full range from popular ballads to poetry of high seriousness by Judith Wright, Rosemary Dobson and Stewart himself. Humorous short fiction appeared elsewhere in the paper. Reviews were opinionated, newsy and entertaining, usually well-informed but rarely intellectually demanding. The middlebrow commercial magazines can be contrasted to the more ‘authoritative’ cultural reviews and to journals of opinion and public affairs: Southerly, Meanjin, Angry Penguins and Twentieth Century in the first category; Australian Quarterly, the Austral–Asiatic Bulletin and View in the second. Then there were the ‘little magazines’, those with primarily aesthetic aims and content such as Poetry, Barjai or A Comment; and a group of magazines concerned primarily with the business of being a writer, from the professionally serious Fellowship (the Fellowship of Australian Writers) to the matey Bohemian (the Bread and Cheese Club) to the market-driven Writer where Australian literature meant writing ‘free

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from cliques and coteries, untrammelled by “schools” and “isms” . . . that of the honest craftsman who seeks to do a good job and to do it well’. But this was a view that could also be found in Meanjin or Southerly. The oldest of the magazines surviving in 1946 was the Australian Journal (1865–1962), edited since 1931 by Ron Campbell who also wrote fiction under the name Rex Grayson. It was an example of an earlier form of story magazine, now adapted to the new forms of urban popular culture; its contents comprised almost entirely short fiction and serialised novels. With a substantial 90 pages each month, it boasted a circulation of over 120 000. The Australian Journal featured both local and overseas writers, with the balance in favour of the local. It mixed outback and Pacific frontier stories, crime, adventure, romance, comedy and sentimental realism. The Australian Journal was unashamedly about entertainment, but it was nonetheless committed to ‘good writing’, distinguishing, for example, between Zane Gray and his imitators (January 1946). It was also committed to Australian writing. Robert Close was serialised and Vance Palmer published a story, ‘The Red Truck’, in the March 1946 issue. The Australian Journal celebrated its 90th year in 1955 and what had been a family company was taken over by Southdown Press. Covers were progressively modernised and, while the fiction content was maintained, ‘real-life articles’ and new departments made it less a story magazine than a general magazine like Pix or Post. The question of whether a popular fiction magazine could survive in the local market was answered by television, and the Australian Journal ceased publication in 1962. The monthly Walkabout (1934–74) also played an important role in sustaining writers. From August 1946 it was the journal of the Australian Geographical Society, and its 1946 contributors included Henrietta Drake-Brockman, Ernestine Hill, R. H. Croll, W. E. Harney, J. K. Ewers and Mary Durack. Walkabout combined popular writing with specialist articles and scientific or ethnographic photography, bringing (in the magazine’s own words) the vast continent and its unique natural and human history to mainly urban readers in an attractive large format. Its interest in pioneering was matched by an interest in the ‘primitive’: in traditional Aboriginal and Pacific cultures. By the late-1950s there were fewer articles by literary authors. Although the format was modernised in 1970, Walkabout maintained much the same mix of contents through to

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its closure in 1974. New forms of tourism and television had overtaken its pioneering role. Not so far removed from Walkabout, and sharing much the same life span, was Man (1936–74), the ‘Australian Magazine for Men’. Man was published by K. G. Murray in Sydney, then the largest magazine group in Australia. Man was more than its photographic Etudes des Femmes or hen-pecked husband and seductive secretary cartoons. Each month it featured a stridently patriotic column by editor Frank Greenop. Its ‘Australasiana’ department had earlier been edited by Ion Idriess. Each issue had half a dozen stories by Australian authors, usually crime, adventure or romance. D’Arcy Niland, E. V. Timms, Frank Clune and Ernestine Hill appeared during 1946.With the new departments it introduced that year – Sociology, Science, Psychology and Clothes – Man claimed not only to entertain but to address ‘the reader who likes to read serious ideas and reflect upon them’. Man continued to publish Australian fiction into the 1960s but its pretensions to seriousness largely disappeared. It reached its sales peak in the 1950s and then wound down to 1974. Commercial magazines with higher aspirations included Pertinent and Australia: National Journal. The latter was Sydney Ure Smith’s new publication following the sale of Art in Australia (1916–42) and Home (1920–42). Australia was urban and indeed urbane. Each issue carried stories, elegant ‘light’ essays, verse and modern art reproductions. Aiming higher but landing lower was Pertinent, ‘A Criticism and Review of Australian Art and Literature’, launched as a monthly in 1940. Its founding editor, Leon Batt, assured his readers that the magazine would not be ‘highbrow’ and the first issue included Norman Lindsay,Vance Palmer and F. J. Thwaites. After Batt’s retirement due to ill-health, Pertinent was relaunched, unsuccessfully, in late 1946. Australia’s Progress and Australian New Writing were produced from the organised left, but Progress developed a format close to the middlebrow magazines. It had an unusual history. It began as a state Labor (NSW) and then Communist newspaper in 1940, became a weekly radio-news magazine in April 1945, then a monthly ‘cultural journal’ later in the same year, with Katharine Prichard and Bernard Smith among its associates. Its editorials ran a strong anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist line, and it favoured realist, socially ‘responsible’ art. Australian New Writing

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had appeared more or less annually since 1943 and ceased publication in 1946. Edited by Farwell, Smith and Prichard, the magazine was a strong expression of the belief that the war had produced the impetus for a new, progressive culture. Realism, not modernism, represented the future. Nonetheless, Australian New Writing resembled a modernist little magazine; indeed it was based on the English Penguin New Writing. Communist Review, the Party’s official journal, also published occasional articles on literary and artistic matters. In the 1950s questions of Australian literature and socialist realism would be of intense concern to communist writers and theoreticians in its pages. Cultural nationalism could be militant. It could also be genteel. The Australian Book Society was formed in Sydney in 1945 and launched Australian Books as a ‘rallying place for all book lovers who wish to see Australian writing . . . given its full place and prominence as our own expression of literature’. The Society’s Advisory Board, comprising Christesen, Farwell, Margaret Trist, R. G. Howarth, Nettie Palmer, Miles Franklin, Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, made a Book Choice each month. Another attempt at a general ‘books magazine’ was the Australasian Book News and Library Journal, edited by Farwell and launched in August 1946. It, too, selected an Australian Book of the Month and featured book news, publishers’ advertisements, review-essays, a short story, author features, articles on publishing and a children’s section. The ABC launched the monthly Talk in 1946 to accompany its popular weekly program guide ABC Weekly (itself a magazine with literary interests, edited by Ernestine Hill). Talk covered a wide range of ‘serious entertainment’, but like Australian Books and Australasian Book News it failed to survive beyond its second year. The journal that might have come closest to George Mackaness’s desire for an authoritative monthly was View, launched in Melbourne in February 1946. Each issue covered national and international affairs, cinema, literature and international theatre. Its critical standards were high. The first issue featured a biographical essay on Arthur Koestler, the second noted Heinrich Mann’s birthday and reviewed Henry Miller positively. Allan Ashbolt contributed sophisticated review-essays on the theatre, and European cinema was reviewed. View was sensitive to racism, ‘alien-baiting’ and ‘sexual repression’. In June 1946 the magazine’s format

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was enlarged and its name changed to Focus, ‘the monthly magazine for responsible people’. The contributor’s list was impressive but Focus too survived only to 1948. Its combination of intellectual and commercial independence was next to impossible without institutional support from a university, a religious group or a commercial media enterprise. Meanjin, by contrast, settled into the format of a serious ‘quarterly of literature and art’. Its full-length articles were reflective rather than polemical, although Christesen’s commentaries were often testy. More than any other journal, Meanjin defined itself through differentiating the ‘serious’ – the intellectual, the cultural, the critical, the modern – from the middlebrow world of literary journalism. It was interested in the theatre as an expression of national culture but, unlike Focus, did not review performances. In contrast to the Bulletin, its book reviews were highly selective, according to the significance of theme or author. For Christesen, commercial interests were inimical to cultural interests. Meanjin saw itself defining an Australian tradition but also a modern tradition, and addressed the role of artists and intellectuals in contemporary society. Meanjin published more on these themes in 1946 than on Australian literature. A. L. Patkin, for example, compared Russian and Western intellectuals, while Frank Kermode diagnosed the ‘artist in war and peace’. These would remain constant themes for Meanjin, and become highly charged in the context of cold-war intellectual divisions. By the mid-1950s Meanjin was Australia’s most substantial journal of ‘literature, art and discussion’. Each issue was around 100 pages and contained poetry and short stories, extended criticism of Australian and overseas writers (though only one or two critical articles per issue), discussion of large-scale political questions, and occasionally essays on trends in European philosophy or art.The magazine’s international content was narrower but its Australian content broader and more scholarly than a decade earlier. Christesen was acutely aware of his magazine’s position, not only its precarious financial position but also its status between independent review and academic journal. In early 1956 he outlined Meanjin’s role as ‘a journal of ideas rather than of literature in the narrow sense’. The magazine’s increasing dependence on academic contributors disturbed Christesen, who insisted that Meanjin would never be an academic journal, ‘a fate, surely, worse than death’. Ironically, for a later

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generation of readers and writers Meanjin could appear both too academic and not academic enough. Meanjin is often paired with Southerly because of the near coincidence of their founding, their longevity and the fact that they were the first journals to regularly publish full-length critical essays on Australian authors. But Southerly exhibits little of Meanjin’s intellectual militancy. Edited by Sydney academic R. G. Howarth (1939–55), backed by Sydney’s English Association and printed by Angus & Robertson, Southerly was more narrowly literary than Meanjin but, by the same token, more generous in the range of literature it noted. Howarth described Southerly in early 1946 as ‘the only Australian magazine devoted entirely to literature’. It was then less academic than Meanjin, more closely connected, still, to the worlds of literary journalism, the Bulletin, and the bohemianism of Lindsay or Hugh McCrae. When Howarth left Australia in 1956, Kenneth Slessor was appointed editor of Southerly and immediately implemented a number of changes to the format and content, bringing a less academic tone by inviting contributions from journalist colleagues and even Prime Minister Menzies. In 1960 Slessor resigned in frustration after consistent delays caused partly by Angus & Robertson’s withdrawal of production support.Walter Stone acted as editor for several years, printing Southerly at his Wentworth Press, then in 1963 G. A. Wilkes began his long term as editor. The foundation Professor of Australian Literature at Sydney University,Wilkes broadened the journal’s scope by seeking contributors outside the Sydney circle of writers employed by Howarth and Slessor, but also narrowed its focus to scholarship and criticism of Australian literature largely written by academics. Thus, together with Australian Literary Studies, Southerly played a leading role in the professionalisation of criticism of Australian literature in the 1960s and 1970s. It continued to publish verse and fiction. Meanjin in the 1940s might be better paired with Angry Penguins, despite their intellectual differences. For Christesen, the modern artist and intellectual were central to social and cultural reconstruction. For Max Harris, founding editor of Angry Penguins, the keys were psychic rather than social – creativity, originality and experimentalism as the conditions for culture. Angry Penguins thus gave prominence to poetry and painting rather than prose. Where Meanjin strove for a kind of centrality, Angry Penguins

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claimed the avant-garde edge. But both journals linked the literary to the intellectual in a distinctively modern fashion. Following the Ern Malley hoax, Harris moved to Melbourne in 1945 to work with patron and co-editor John Reed in Reed & Harris publishing. From Melbourne they launched a new cultural monthly, Angry Penguins Broadsheet. One final issue of Angry Penguins appeared in 1946 but with a desultory air. The apocalypse still haunted its poetry and it could describe American jazz in a way no other Australian journal then could as ‘the expression of the immediate’. Harris used this final issue to attack other magazines.What caused him to despair was not the failure of local magazines but the success of the popular monthlies such as Australia, Pertinent, Progress and View which were ‘a nasty endemic rash on the body aesthetic’. When Harris stated that ‘good journalism is not good literature’, he was articulating one of the key distinctions of the period being exercised in Angry Penguins and Meanjin. Angry Penguins Broadsheet, edited by Harris, James McGuire and Sidney Nolan, was launched to overcome the time-lag and small audience associated with quarterly publication. Its first editorial had the ring of a manifesto. The magazine’s function was ‘to attack bad art [and] those debased values in the community which demand and perpetuate bad art’. But it also aimed ‘to improve taste and judgement in the realm of “popular art” such as the cinema, jazz, or journalism’. The Broadsheet published a few poems and illustrations, and reviewed books, cinema and theatre. Its real energy was in its critical and satirical articles: Albert Tucker attacking Bernard Smith’s Place,Taste and Tradition, McGuire on the Bulletin, Harris scouring the newspaper and periodical review pages for fatuity. Next to commercialism and journalism, the favoured antagonist was communism. The Broadsheet maintained Angry Penguins’ international links, publishing Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller, Sartre’s ‘Portrait of an Anti-Semite’ and, in its final issue, ‘A Day with Duke Ellington’. Most unlikely among the little magazines is A Comment which began in suburban Melbourne. Edited by Cecily Crozier (although initially it made the avant-garde gesture of claiming no editor), early numbers were printed on brown wrapping paper, a case of turning wartime restrictions into an aesthetic statement. In 1947, after twenty-six numbers, the magazine expired for want of the 150 subscribers needed to bring it

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out quarterly. The other testament to this avant-garde moment, perhaps equally unlikely, is Barjai, produced in Brisbane from 1943 to 1947. The magazine grew from a student publication at Brisbane State High School, but wartime Brisbane was culturally invigorated by thousands of American and Allied troops. Laurence Collinson, Barrie Reid and Barbara Patterson (later Blackman) were among Barjai’s editors. Like many little magazines, there was often more energy in the editorial manifestos and criticism than in the creative writing. By 1945 Barjai was a quarterly with national reach, dedicated to ‘Creative Youth’. By late 1946 the magazine expressed its feeling that Brisbane’s modern moment had passed and Barjai too disappeared in 1947. One of the most impressive of the little-known little magazines was Flexmore Hudson’s quarterly Poetry which lived up to its slogan, ‘The Australian International Quarterly of Verse’. Published from Adelaide, Poetry regularly included poets from the United States and New Zealand. Hudson had strong links with the Jindyworobak movement and published its leading figures, but the ‘modernity’ of the magazine’s Jindyinfluenced verse is striking. The search for meaning in desert landscapes is matched by urban wasteland images in poems about war or the modern city. It was a feature of the period that an interest in modernism often coincided with a revised interest in ‘Aboriginality’ – in Barjai and Meanjin, with their Aboriginal titles, in Angry Penguins and Poetry. Poetry’s final issue, in December 1947, included a long essay from William Carlos Williams. Without a substantial institutional framework, Poetry was unable to survive the shift of Australian poetry’s centre of gravity to the quarterlies. Independent journals of opinion and public affairs predated academic journals. The most significant was Australian Quarterly (1929–67), published first by the NSW Constitutional Association and then, from 1935, by the Australian Institute of Political Science. Australian Quarterly provided a forum for academics, specialists and well-informed amateurs to publish extended articles on politics and public affairs, but it also covered history, education, economics, international relations, media, art, language and literature. Although described by Max Harris, in 1961, as ‘inscrutably dull’, Australian Quarterly has continued through to the present, now as AQ: Journal of Contemporary Affairs. Of similar provenance

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was the Austral-Asiatic Bulletin (1937–47), founded by the Australian Institute of International Affairs and dedicated to the dissemination of ‘scientific research’ on Pacific affairs (which included Australian politics). F. W. Eggleston and W. Macmahon Ball were major figures as editors and authors. Walter Murdoch contributed an ‘Australian Diary’. The bulletin took Australia’s place in the British Commonwealth as its premise but was internationalist in spirit. Between 1942 and 1946 the war in the Pacific so altered the magazine’s sense of its role that it reconfigured its contents, dropping its news digest functions in favour of longer articles such as Manning Clark’s on ‘Political Nationalism’ (April 1946). In March the following year, in response to the new politics of Asia and the Pacific, the magazine was re-launched, for wider circulation, as Australian Outlook (1947–89). The conservative quarterly Twentieth Century survived from 1946 until 1975. Established by a group of Catholic laymen and then, from 1955, published by the Jesuit Institute for Social Order in Melbourne, it published ‘articles of general interest in various fields – cultural, philosophical, sociological, political, scientific’. If its politics and philosophy were narrow, often reflecting the views of Archbishop Mannix and B. A. Santamaria, the range of topics and seriousness of treatment were notable. By contrast, few of the independent literary reviews or little magazines survived beyond the late 1940s.The gap between journalism and criticism progressively widened, and new attempts to claim the middle ground and the avant-garde were made, including Bruce Muirden’s Austrovert (1950– 53), Ern Malley’s Journal (1952–55), edited by Harris, Reed and Barrie Reid, and Direction (1952–55), edited by L. H. Davison. Rex Ingamells published one number of Merringek (1953), a new Jindyworobak publication. At the avant-garde edge were Harry Hooton’s Number Three (1948), MS (1950–51) and 21st Century (1955 & 1957). Barry Humphries was closely associated with the more urbane Port Phillip Gazette (1952–56) which, rather in the spirit of the eighteenth-century Spectator, aimed ‘to examine quizzically men and manners in our time, to look askance at the peccadilloes of 20th century life in our environs’. But there were few long-term survivors. The serious quarterlies, such as Meanjin and Southerly, were joined by Overland (1954), Quadrant (1956) and Westerly (1956), all still extant.

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Then, in the late 1950s and 1960s, a new kind of public affairs journal emerged, with Nation, the Observer, Outlook, Dissent and Prospect. Overland, edited by Stephen Murray-Smith, arrived on the scene in 1954 with a much more confident sense of an Australian national tradition.The magazine emerged out of the Realist Writer (1952–54), the magazine of the Melbourne Realist Writers group. Most members were communists and the Realist Writer was defined as much by an interest in socialist-realist or working-class writing as it was by nationalism. With communism under increasing attack, the mid-1950s was a highpoint for left-wing cultural activities. When, in 1958, Murray-Smith and key contributor Ian Turner left the Communist Party, Overland showed no sudden shift. Murray-Smith had from the beginning defined it as a literary magazine. If anything, Overland was less political than Meanjin, although more intensely focused on literature with a ‘democratic’ purpose. While maintaining its faith in democratic humanism and literature’s centrality to this, Overland’s understanding of Australian culture was transformed by the influence of new art forms (White’s fiction, Nolan’s painting) and new critical languages. It was also constantly exercised by the postwar influence of American ‘mass-commercial’ culture which seemed ready to destroy Australia’s own, home-grown popular culture. The magazine published writers who might well also appear in Meanjin or Quadrant, but it retained a place for those ‘ordinary’, often workingclass writers who were unlikely to appear elsewhere. Overland’s commitment to literature and ‘humanity’ left something of a political vacuum on the cultural left. After Overland’s break with the Communist Party in 1958, Sydney writers around Frank Hardy launched a new version of the Realist Writer (later the Realist). This focused mainly on questions of writing and national traditions but also included forums on international issues such as the treatment of Soviet writers. The Party itself updated Communist Review in 1966 with a new format and a new title, Australian Left Review. Discussions broadened to reflect the postStalinist ‘thaw’ in the Soviet Union; debates about Australian communism came to mingle with more critical pieces on Soviet policy as communism divided internally following Hungary and then Czechoslovakia. Helen Palmer, daughter of Vance and Nettie Palmer, launched Outlook in mid-1957. Outlook’s provenance was close to Overland’s but it

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was expressly designed to address the kinds of political (and theoretical) issues, especially post-Hungary socialism, that were only occasionally explicit in Overland. It also published theatre and book reviews. According to Ian Turner’s retrospective, published in the journal’s final issue, its life-span can be divided into three periods: the first (1957–60) examined events in the Soviet Union and scrutinised the Labor Party; the second (1960–64) concentrated on a socialist policy for Australia; the third (1965–70) was dominated by the Vietnam War. But Vietnam also represented something of a generational break, and in 1970 Palmer and the editorial board agreed that the magazine was no longer fulfilling its purpose and ceased production. Perhaps Arena, launched in Melbourne in 1963, better represented the future for left-wing intelligentsia. With one foot in the university, Arena was consciously about intellectual work and actively engaged with New Left, neo-Marxist and Eurocommunist developments in political theory, sociology and, later, cultural studies. The conservative response to cold-war intellectual politics was manifested in the appearance of Quadrant in late 1956. Quadrant was the local instance of an international phenomenon. Soon after the war, the international Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was established to protect ‘freedom and creativity’, principally against communism. Magazines were established in several countries: Encounter (England), Preuves (France), Der Monat (Germany) and Quest (India). In January 1956 the CCF endorsed a proposal for an Australian magazine put forward by the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom. Unusually among cultural magazines, as Susan Lever has remarked, Quadrant was thus planned by ‘a group of people who were not writers nor interested in promoting literary work in Australia’, at least until the appointment of James McAuley, anti-communist, anti-nationalist and anti-modern, as foundation editor. The essays and articles Quadrant published were sometimes, but not always, overtly conservative or anti-communist. Its attack on modernism matched its attack on secular liberalism. Poetry was preferred to fiction, arguably because the kind of poetry McAuley selected (marked by traditional form, elevated diction and high seriousness) best illustrated the argument that art had no connection to politics. In the first twenty years many poets appeared in Quadrant, including McAuley, Evan Jones, Gwen Harwood, Rosemary Dobson, R. A. Simpson, Vincent Buckley,

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A. D. Hope, Thomas Shapcott and Chris Wallace-Crabbe. McAuley remained editor of Quadrant until his death in 1976. During this time he was assisted by a number of co-editors and associates. Donald Horne’s term (1964–67) brought a stronger international focus with a number of contributors from overseas. There were fewer articles on Australian authors and McAuley’s views were less apparent. Quadrant returned to the balance of literary and political material when Peter Coleman was appointed co-editor in 1967. A key development of the 1960s was the thickening of the context of academic journals. McAuley himself played a part in the establishment of Australian Literary Studies. Although the study of Australian literature was served by a number of magazines, he saw the need for a scholarly journal and recruited Laurie Hergenhan, newly arrived at the University of Tasmania, as founding editor. The first issue was launched in August 1963. Aimed at teachers and students of Australian literature, the issues produced in the 1960s focused on the colonial period, with critical studies of more recent literature. Unlike Southerly and Meanjin, Australian Literary Studies publishes no creative writing, concentrating solely on criticism and reviews of criticism. Since 1963, the Annual Bibliography of Studies in Australian Literature, in each May issue, has been the most comprehensive and up-to-date printed guide to Australian literature. Other journals of academic literary criticism included: Balcony (1965–67) from the English Department at the University of Sydney and the Melbourne Critical Review (Melbourne, Sydney, 1958–64; later the Critical Review, 1965–2001). Westerly was established at the University of Western Australia as a student-edited magazine of the Arts Union in December 1956. Published three times a year, it had an annual editorial turnover until 1962 when J. M. S. O’Brien began a term that lasted until 1965. Westerly attempted to find a balance between serving the West Australian region and maintaining an intellectual connection with the eastern states and the rest of the world. During the 1960s Westerly concentrated on original work, publishing early work by Frank Moorhouse, Murray Bail, Michael Wilding, Bruce Dawe, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Gwen Harwood, Dorothy Hewett, Fay Zwicky and Hal Colebatch. Like most literary magazines, Westerly has struggled to attract funding, and early volumes included a significant amount of advertising.

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In an attempt to produce an Australian literary magazine that engaged with international intellectual movements – and perhaps in response to the established dominance of the increasingly academic review – Max Harris, Geoffrey Dutton and Bryn Davies founded the independent Australian Letters (1957–68). Funded primarily by advertisements, donations, subscriptions and sales, Australian Letters ran for ten years, supported by the unpaid labour of editors and staff.The editors described the journal as ‘determinedly non-academic and eclectic’ and commissioned contributions from overseas writers, including Frank Kermode, Lawrence Durrell, Richard Aldington, Roy Campbell and Philip Larkin. The magazine was nevertheless committed to fostering Australian writers and artists. With a keen interest in visual art and poetry, the magazine commissioned a series of nineteen artist–poet collaborations, including contributions from Russell Drysdale and David Campbell, Donald Friend and Douglas Stewart, Leonard French and James McAuley, and Sidney Nolan and Randolph Stow. Fiction in Australian Letters was dominated by Patrick White, while Frank Moorhouse and Peter Carey found a place for their early work. By January 1968 the editors were preoccupied with other projects such as Australian Book Review and decided that ten years of Australian Letters was enough. Australian Book Review (ABR) was established in 1961 to provide a forum for the review of new Australian books. Harris and Dutton planned to review or ‘notice’ every new Australian book, but this proved difficult due to the rising number of publications. Nevertheless, ABR provided general readers with authoritative assessments of important books. Regular reviewers included Olaf Ruhen,Tom Shapcott and Bruce Beaver. Rosemary Wighton became co-editor in 1962 and remained with Harris until 1973, when the magazine ceased operation after it became increasingly difficult to meet production costs. Australian Book Review was relaunched in 1978 under the auspices of the National Book Council, an initiative of new editor John McLaren. Without the sense of crisis which provoked magazines in the immediate postwar years, fewer new literary–cultural journals appeared in the 1950s. Prism (1954–61) was launched by the Poetry Society of Australia, without a manifesto but with the aim of publishing poets and raising standards. Its staidness, even innocence, proved a virtue, enabling the magazine to survive

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and become the more significant Poetry Magazine in 1961. In 1964, following a dispute about content and future directions, Grace Perry resigned as editor to establish Poetry Australia. Four years later, the appointment of Robert Adamson to the editorial team of Poetry Magazine initiated another dispute over the amount of space devoted to American and English poets. Following the resignation of several members of the editorial committee, Adamson assumed the position of editor, changed the name of the magazine to New Poetry and established one of the most important vehicles for the ‘New Australian Poetry’ of the 1970s. The politicisation of the quarterlies resolved into their consolidation as the literary and cultural mainstream. They evolved a stable format mixing verse, fiction, reviews and essays, mainly written by academics but still notionally addressed to a generalist audience.The late 1950s saw the emergence of new kinds of public opinion magazines. In comparison to the quarterlies, these were closer to both politics and journalism, and also to new intellectual trends in the universities and to cinema, television and youth cultures. Many of their contributors were products of both journalism and the university – Donald Horne,Tom Fitzgerald, Ken Gott, Robert Hughes, Sylvia Lawson, Mungo MacCallum. Although not necessarily left wing, dissatisfaction with the unmoveable Menzies government and the narrow conservatism of the daily press formed a binding intellectual force. The Observer and the Nation, both fortnightlies, were established precisely to cover issues not treated in the daily press or the quarterlies. These were liberal and modernising magazines, anti-conservative and anti-totalitarian. They were joined by university-based journals such as Prospect and Dissent, reflecting, from very different perspectives, the sense of a new, liberal intellectual and ideological context. Perhaps the forerunner for these magazines was Voice: The Australian Independent Monthly (1951–56); its first issue carried the title AIM: Australian Independent Monthly, but following a split in the planning group a rival magazine with this title appeared. Founding editor Harold Levien, disillusioned with Australia’s insularity, inefficiency and conservatism, conceived the magazine as ‘an attempt to satisfy the pressing need for a critical Australian review of current political, economic, and cultural developments’. Published from Sydney, Voice modelled itself on the English and American ‘higher journalism’ found in Nation or the New

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Statesman (it had reprinting deals with the latter). Although close to the Labor Party and accused of communist sympathies, Voice proclaimed its independent commitment to ‘the perfection of Australian democracy’. Like Meanjin, Voice linked politics and culture, but as a monthly it was closer to topical policy issues, tracking the introduction of television and challenging White Australia. It also kept a watching brief on Soviet and Asian politics. By 1956 it had built an impressive list of contributors, including H. V. Evatt, John Burton, McMahon Ball, Elizabeth Vassilieff, Frank Crean,Vance Palmer, Henry Mayer and Allan Fraser. The disappearance of Voice in 1956 was noted by Christesen in a Meanjin editorial. Voice had also been admired by Tom Fitzgerald, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald’s financial pages. Fitzgerald had planned to establish an independent periodical with Frank Packer but had been persuaded to remain at Fairfax where he was given the freedom to edit a periodical in his spare time. The first issue of Nation appeared in September 1958. It printed no verse and only once printed fiction, focusing instead on public affairs and reviews of books, theatre, film and television. Through both political writing and reviews, the journal spoke for a new postwar generation of educated, urban readers. By 1960 Nation had a circulation of ten thousand and regular advertisers, but it still often relied on Fitzgerald’s own cash contributions to stay afloat. Although its circulation rose during the 1960s, it was unable to pay its contributors regularly. By the early 1970s ‘younger’ papers such as the Sunday Review and the National Times had overtaken it. In 1972 Nation was sold to Gordon Barton who merged it with the Sunday Review to form Nation Review. The new paper continued Nation’s mix of political and cultural commentary but with a more satirical, irreverent and ‘alternative’ focus. Appearing in the same year as Nation was another fortnightly, the Observer, edited by Donald Horne and published by Packer’s Consolidated Press, where Horne had been the successful editor of Weekend magazine for four years. Unlike Fitzgerald, Horne received resources from his employer to establish the new paper.The Observer covered business and the economy, and also reviewed literature, cinema, art and music. Robert Hughes was both art critic and cover illustrator, while Bruce Beresford wrote about film. The short life of the Observer ended when Consolidated Press bought the Bulletin in 1961 and merged them.

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A different manifestation entirely was Oz magazine, first published on April Fools’ Day 1963. Behind this satirical magazine was a group of student editors from several Sydney universities.They were influenced by the English Private Eye and New Statesman, and aimed to challenge repressive conservatism through discussions of sexuality, images of nudity and libertarian ideas about social and political change. Much of the magazine was written by Richard Walsh, Richard Neville and cartoonist Martin Sharp, but writers such as Bob Ellis and Robert Hughes also contributed. Circulation reached a peak of 40 000 copies. In 1966 Neville and Sharp left Australia for England where they established a London version of Oz magazine – which culminated in a celebrated court case. The editors were first sentenced to gaol then released on appeal after public protests and support from celebrities such as John Lennon. The Australian version of Oz continued until 1970. Without Neville and Sharp, it took on a more serious tone and circulation dropped dramatically. Prospect (1958–64) and Dissent (1961–82), together with Arena, also represent a new development, overtly ‘intellectual’ journals based in the university but around politico-cultural rather than academic structures. In the early 1950s, members of Melbourne University’s Newman Society, students and younger academics dissatisfied with Santamaria’s version of Catholic authority, developed a more intellectualised approach to Catholic philosophy and to ethical and social issues. The group founded Prospect in 1958 to give ‘Christian expression to critical, cultural and social problems’. The poet and academic Vincent Buckley was a leading figure in the magazine’s development. Prospect published ‘new’ poets, including Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Randolph Stow, Bruce Dawe, Gwen Harwood and Buckley himself. One of Prospect’s challenges came from Dissent, launched as a quarterly in 1961 by a group of Melbourne University students attuned to contemporary, left-leaning developments in social and political thought. Dissent has been seen as a secular version of Prospect, and several of its editors were former contributing editors to Prospect. In the decades after the end of the war, the magazine scene changed fundamentally. The independent commercial magazines and general reviews of culture and entertainment – weeklies and monthlies – had all but disappeared. The cultural quarterlies were solidly established,

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although undergoing renewal in the mid-1970s with new editors and new formats. They overlapped significantly in their contributors, tone and platforms, despite still bearing traces of their cold-war genesis. The avant-garde spirit was revived in a series of little magazines in the 1970s (The Ear in the Wheatfield, Magic Sam, Etymspheres, Your Friendly Fascist) and in the 80s and 90s a new crop of literary magazines included Scripsi, Australian Short Stories and Heat. Academic journals increasingly provided the venues for professional intellectual work, absorbing energies that might once have produced new, independent, ‘cross-over’ journals. Nonetheless the space between university-based journals and commercial magazines published by large media companies would remain the site of editorial dreams, intellectual stake-outs and brief moments of brilliant success as new magazines were born and old magazines re-born. NOTE ON SOURCES Useful books on periodicals: John Tregenza, Australian Little Magazines 1923–1954, Adelaide, Libraries Board of SA, 1964; Bruce Bennett (ed.), Cross Currents: Magazines and Newspapers in Australian Literature, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1981 (incl. Thomas Shapcott on the Bulletin); and John McLaren, Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as Politics in Postwar Australia, Melbourne, CUP, 1996. Earlier studies: Frank Greenhop, History of Magazine Publishing in Australia, Sydney, K. G. Murray, 1947, and H. M. Green’s History of Australian Literature, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1961. For Angry Penguins and Max Harris: Michael Heyward, The Ern Malley Affair, St Lucia, UQP, 1993; for Australian Quarterly: Stephen Alomes, ‘Intellectuals as Publicists’, in Brian Head and James Walter (eds), Intellectual Movements and Australian Society, Melbourne, OUP, 1988; for Man: Richard White,‘The Importance of Being Man’, in Peter Spearritt and David Walker (eds), Australian Popular Culture, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1979; for Meanjin: Lynne Strahan, Just City and the Mirrors: Meanjin Quarterly and the Intellectual Front 1940–65, Melbourne, OUP, 1984, Jenny Lee et al. (eds), The Temperament of Generations: Fifty Years of Writing in Meanjin, Melbourne, MUP, 1990, and Judith Armstrong, The Christesen Romance, Melbourne, MUP, 1996; for Nation: Ken Inglis (ed.), Nation: The Life of an Independent Journal of Opinion 1958–1972, Melbourne, MUP, 1989; for Observer: Donald Horne, Out into the Open: Memoirs 1958–1999, Sydney, HarperCollins, 2000; for Overland: Stephen Murray Smith, Indirections: A Literary (Auto)Biography, Townsville, JCU, 1981, and David Carter, ‘Capturing the Liberal Sphere: Overland’s First Decade’ in David Carter (ed.), Outside the Book: Contemporary Essays on Literary Periodicals, Sydney, Local Consumption, 1991; for Oz: Richard Neville, Hippie Hippie Shake, Melbourne, William Heinemann, 1995; for Prospect:Vincent Buckley, Cutting Green Hay, Ringwood, Penguin, 1983; for Quadrant: Susan McKernan (Lever), ‘The Question of

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Literary Independence: Quadrant and Australian Writing’, in Outside the Book, and Peter Coleman, Lee Shrub and Vivian Smith (eds), Quadrant: Twenty Five Years, St Lucia, UQP, 1982; for Southerly: S. E. Lee, Southerly, vol. 49, no. 3, 1989.

Case-study: Pulp Fiction IAN MORRISON ‘Pulp’ originally referred to the cheap wood-pulp paper used in American mass-market magazines of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term is now used for rapidly written, formula-driven fiction characterised by high ‘story value’ but no literary merit. Pulps appealed to naïve readers – including young adults hungry for forbidden fruit – but crime, romance and science fiction/fantasy also attracted more sophisticated readers, many of whom became writers. The beginnings of such publishing in Australia can be traced back through the activities of the New South Wales Bookstall Company (1890s–1920s) to the yellowbacks and paperbacks of the older George Robertson (1825–98).The golden age, however, was the 1940s and 1950s. World War II saw a dramatic increase in demand for reading material, and, with the arrival of large numbers of American troops, experiments in cosmopolitan literary publishing, such as the magazine Meanjin, began to be viable. Publishers and writers also moved to satisfy the demand for cheap, diverting entertainment. The leading pulp publishers of the war years were Currawong Publishing Company and Invincible Press. Invincible, an offshoot of the Truth and Sportsman Newspaper Company, published magazines, comics, novelettes, full-length novels and sensationalised non-fiction, original Australian work as well as reprints of British and American writers. Currawong published mystery, romance, western and fantasy novelettes – mostly by Australian authors – and a series of politically provocative ‘Unpopular Pamphlets’. Vol Molesmorth, a teenage fan of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, began writing for Currawong in 1943. After the war other publishers emerged. The major successes included Peter Horwitz’s Transport Publishing Company (discussed in Chapter 2), Calvert Books, the Original Novels Foundation, and the Cleveland Publishing Company. Horwitz began publishing westerns in the 1940s before

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establishing the science-fiction magazine Thrills Incorporated in 1950. Two of the most prolific writers for Horwitz were Gordon Bleeck and Alan Yates. Bleeck wrote more than 350 stories and novelettes – mainly westerns and ‘scientific horror’ – under his own name and thirteen pseudonyms. Yates became famous under the pseudonym ‘Carter Brown’ as the author of mildly erotic detective thrillers. The total number of his works has been estimated as over 300. In the grand pulp tradition of recycling, many were reissued under various titles, sometimes altered, sometimes not. During the 1960s, riding the phenomenal success of Carter Brown, Horwitz became a leading popular publisher, in 1963 employing eight full-time and at least as many part-time writers. Full-timers were required to produce a 45 000-word novel every month. For those who could maintain the pace, the job offered a better-than-average wage. It was also an intellectual game: accomplished writers relished the challenge posed by the complex rules of genre fiction. A few achieved substantial overseas sales – notably Yates, J. E. Macdonnell (naval adventures, romances, spy thrillers) and W. R. Bennett (air force adventures). Many writers shared ‘house names’. Richard Wilkes-Hunter wrote under thirteen pseudonyms, five of which he shared with other writers, as well as using several variations on his own name. He also wrote westerns and thrillers for other publishers. Calvert Books, run by Sydney accountant Denny White, published crime, war and romance fiction during the 1950s and 1960s. The Original Novels Foundation issued reprints of American thrillers under several imprints – notably Phantom Books – which they marketed as ‘original story, not a reprint’. The economics of this venture are unclear, but Phantom Books sold in tens of thousands until the lifting of import restrictions in 1959. Cleveland was established by Jack Atkins in 1953, and run by his son Les from the 1970s. The bulk of their output consisted of westerns, but they also dabbled in other genres, most successfully with the Larry Kent detective series written mainly by expatriate American Don Haring and Queenslander Des R. Dunn. This series ran from 1954 to 1983, eventually stretching to over 400 titles, some of which were set in Australia but most in an unnamed American city.The Larry Kent stories were popular

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in Scandinavia, where translations continued to appear during the 1990s. At the height of its success, Cleveland published eighteen westerns each month, with print runs as high as 50 000, declining to 11 000 by the 1990s. In 2001 Cleveland was still producing eight westerns per month, sold mainly through newsagents. Perhaps the most prolific writer of all was Len Meares: from the 1950s to the 1990s, writing mostly as ‘Marshall Grover’, Meares produced some 750 titles. Again, the numbers involved suggest that stories were recycled under different titles. By the 1970s genre writing had declined as television absorbed audiences and presented new opportunities for emerging writers. The genres that survived were those with the highest ‘story value’ – romance, fantasy and westerns. Crime and science fiction/fantasy had always contained an erotic element, and during the 1960s the pulp end of the market began turning to pornography. Romances, too, became more explicit: during the 1990s the dominant publisher, international giant Harlequin Mills & Boon, began colour-coding its covers, with bright red for the new subgenre ‘sexy romance’. Australian crime writers in the 1980s and 1990s aimed for a more literary audience, exploiting genre conventions to explore serious political and social issues. Although Peter Corris paid homage to Carter Brown, the Sydney of his novels is fully realised in a way that the unnamed cities of the pulp writers are not. In 1994 Duffy & Snellgrove reacted against this trend with an ultra-violent crime series, ‘Autopsy’, designed to ‘put crime fiction back in the gutter where it belongs’. The ‘Autopsy’ novelettes winked at their pulp ancestry by announcing that they were ‘printed on recycled trees’. The series ceased after six titles. A less self-conscious inheritor of ‘pulp’ methods is The Quentaris Chronicles, a fantasy series for adolescent readers launched in 2001, which by mid-2005 had commissioned contributions from fourteen different authors. NOTE ON SOURCES Graeme Flanagan, Australian Vintage Paperback Guide, New York, Gryphon, 1994; John Arnold et al., Bibliography of Australian Literature, 2001–; A. G. Yates, Ready When You Are, C.B.!, South Melbourne, Macmillan, 1983; Toni Johnson-Woods, Pulp: A Collector’s Book of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers, Canberra, National Library of Australia, 2004, and ‘The Mysterious Case of Carter Brown’, Australian Literary Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, 2004, pp.

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74–88; Ian Morrison et al., Sensational Tales: Australian Popular Publishing 1850s–1990s, Parkville, Vic., University of Melbourne Library, 2000; Paul Collins (ed.), The MUP Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy, Carlton, Vic., MUP, 1998; Juliet Flesch, From Australia with Love, Fremantle, WA, Curtin University Books, 2004. Mean Streets (1990–96) is a key journal for Australian crime fiction. For The Quentaris Chronicles, see Michael Pryor and Paul Collins, ‘The Shared World Scenario’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, May 2005, p. 14.

Case-study:New Life for the Colonial Classic Robbery UnderArms PAUL EGGERT By the late 1930s Macmillan of London must have believed that Rolf Boldrewood’s colonial tale of bushranging adventure, Robbery Under Arms, had all but exhausted its appeal. It had originally been serialised in the Sydney Mail in 1882–83, published in London in three volumes in 1888, abridged for Macmillan’s one-volume Colonial Library in 1889, and reprinted in various formats at least forty times until 1920.The firm’s records show that, in total, the title sold more than half a million copies up to 1937, with most sold prior to World War I. Sales had been dropping steadily ever since, and a 1941 reprinting looked like being the last. Yet the work achieved a new lease of life in the decades after World War II. Macmillan evidently sold the rights to Dymocks (Sydney) and Cassells (London), who both issued the novel from new typesettings in 1947 (Dymocks reprinting four times to 1957), to Oxford University Press (nine printings, 1949–65), and to Collins (London) in 1954 (at least two reprintings to 1964). Macmillan re-entered the fray in 1958 with a reissue of their 1928 typesetting, and reprinted in three different formats until 1968. In total, at least another 163 000 copies of this popular classic found their way into bookshops between 1947 and 2001. What caused this upsurge of publishing interest in such an old title? The end of World War II brought a new recognition of the egalitarian ethos and stoic mateship of the Australian fighting man, and publishers must have guessed there would be an appetite to look again at the ballads and colonial classics in which national male characteristics and ideals had been so expressively imagined. The signs were there. Douglas Stewart’s play Ned Kelly (produced in 1942, 1943 and 1947) sustained its popularity on the stage until 1960 with several editions, including one for

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schools in 1956. Angus & Robertson was approached about film rights to Boldrewood’s novel in 1946, and Frank Clune’s illustrated pamphlet Captain Starlight: Reckless Rascal of ‘Robbery Under Arms’ appeared in 1945 from the Hawthorn Press in Melbourne. It was an act of homage, but to what? As Vance Palmer would point out in The Legend of the Nineties (1954), the new interest was in the myth of a national character forged in late colonial days. Two books published in 1958 – Russel Ward’s The Australian Legend and A. A. Phillips’s The Australian Tradition – explored aspects of this ethos. The youthful, defiant and reckless figure of the bushranger remained a potent symbol. Ned Kelly was the last of them, and Robbery Under Arms had been written not long after his hanging in 1880. By the 1950s, critics agreed that it was the voice of the novel’s narrator, Dick Marston – ‘a typical currency lad, talking in the racy argot of his time’ (in Vance Palmer’s words) – that gave the novel its authenticity. The novel’s dustjackets and paperback covers show a gradual transition from sober 1940s design to a stockman on horseback with raised whip (OUP, mid-1950s). Livelylooking Dymocks printings went a step further in 1957, with a still on the back cover from the 1955 film of the novel, with internal stills of Peter Finch as Starlight and David McCallum as Jim Marston replacing earlier inkwash illustrations commissioned by Dymocks in 1947. In its post-1970 formats, the popular man-on-horseback motif continued in the 1980 printings of the A&R Classics paperback series, but this approach was gradually displaced by designs with a documentary appeal to a past imagined now as more definitely historical. By 1990 the A&R cover had changed to a detail from a painting of 1852 by William Strutt: ‘Bushrangers, Victoria, Australia’. A&R used the 432-page Cassells typesetting for these paperbacks, but chose the Collins edition (446 pages) for their hardback from 1982 (with three reprints to 1990). A Frank Mahony painting of 1892 was used on the hardback jackets. In his 1966 survey ‘The Australian Book’, Andrew Fabinyi commented that ‘popular and scholarly [books] . . . on all aspects of Australian life, make the astonishing story of a nation suddenly finding its own voice and looking into a mirror, almost for the first time, to recognise and discern its own features’. He mentions publisher Lloyd O’Neil as one of ‘the frontier pushers, the explorers . . . of the mid-sixties’. In fact,

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O’Neil’s several printings from 1970 had heralded the second (historical) phase of postwar life for Robbery Under Arms, leading up to the Bicentenary celebrations in 1988. His covers, using Tom Roberts’s ‘Bailed Up’, signalled the shift. O’Neil printed between 10 000 and 20 000 copies for these 1970 issues. Titles in his Australian Classics series typically sold between 5000 and 10 000 copies and were well received. John Morrison in the Age commented: ‘Let us move on, by all means, but we can ill afford to lose respect for such precious origins’. Rigby in Adelaide issued the Dymocks typesetting from 1970 to 1981, using Bailed Up on the cover from 1976; Times House Australia’s Great Books series issued the Collins typesetting from 1983 to 1992; and Penguin briefly became involved with a new film tie-in issue in 1985 (reprinted c. 1988, 20 000 copies in all) with Sam Neill on the cover (as Starlight) from the film of that year. UQP issued an 1893 Macmillan facsimile of the novel in its Portable Rolf Boldrewood in 1979 (in hardback and paperback), and with a new cover (a photograph of Boldrewood: another historical document) in its Australian Authors series in 1988. The first new typesetting since 1954 appeared in 1992 (Modern Publishing Group, Melbourne), with a collage on the hardcover of wanted and reward posters, overlaid with an unrelated sepia photo.The historical imagery of the 1970s and 1980s had now diminished to mere historical flavouring in a postmodern climate that spelled another ending for this seemingly evergreen novel. The decade of the globalising 1990s was not kind to Australian literature: UQP for instance, a specialist in the area, struggled; and the publisher of the 1992 typesetting, in a series called Australian Classics, went into insolvency, apparently with the printer’s bill unpaid. With the centenary of Federation in 2001, a year after the runaway success of Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang (UQP), a new typesetting of Robbery Under Arms was released by Axiom Publishing in Adelaide in their Australian Experience series; Louis Braille issued an audio cassette; and amazon.com issued a digital version for the Microsoft Reader, signalling the beginning of yet another cycle in the long and busy bibliographical life of Robbery Under Arms and indexing yet another shift in the cultural climate.

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NOTES ON SOURCES For bibliographic information on the 130 or so impressions and for other information from the Macmillan archive, see the introduction to the Academy Edition, edited by Paul Eggert and Elizabeth Webby (UQP, 2006), and Eggert, ‘The Bibliographic Life of an Australian Classic: Robbery Under Arms’, Script and Print: Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, 29.1 and 2 (2005). The post-World War II sales estimate of 163 000 copies incorporates reported sales and assumes runs of 5000 copies for the six new typesettings and 2000 for the fifty-six or more reprints.

Case-study: Feminist Publishing DIANE BROWN AND SUSAN HAWTHORNE The contested histories of book publishing in Australia reflect colonisation of the local industry by Western publishing powers and non-publishing media monopolies. Feminist critiques of book culture are framed around the social relations in which the book is produced and the cultural space of its production. Feminism at work in publishing is a different kind of engagement with texts and the politics of cultural production, where the agency of feminism exposes and contests power relations through the development of risky publishing lists. Feminist book publishing, a corollary of an organised international political movement, coincided with the growth of ‘mainstream’ book publishing in Australia. Until the 1970s Australian literature was largely representative of dominant masculinist narratives. What constitutes real and imagined feminist writing and publishing has created wide debate. In the late 1970s arguments surrounding the publication of the ‘women’s novel’ were about representations of feminist narrative in Australian fiction. At this time it was difficult to access book-length Australian women’s writing in any genre. A few notable feminist texts were published to coincide with International Women’s Year (1975). These included the most important poetry publishing event of the seventies, Mother I’m Rooted, the lesbian feminist novel All That False Instruction, and the classic study of women in Australian society, Damned Whores and God’s Police. Only a handful of women writers were being published by independent, university press and ‘mainstream’ publishers into the early 1980s, and as a result some decided to self-publish.

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This was the case with Zelda D’Aprano’s autobiography Zelda (1977), Carmel Bird’s novel Cherry Ripe (1985) and Lin Van Hek’s The Hanging Girl (1988). Jean Taylor, who wrote under the pseudonym Emily George, produced a body of Australian lesbian feminist writing for the Melbourne imprint Dykebooks (1976–95). The visibility, publication and reception of women writers by the early 1980s marked a discernible shift in the Australian social, political and cultural landscape. While feminism was regarded by mainstream publishers as unmarketable in the early 1970s, the construction and commodification of ‘women’s writing’ as a genre and ‘women’s studies’ as a discipline ensured an increased representation of women writers within a decade. This made it possible for Dale Spender to initiate the Penguin Australian Women’s Library (1988–91), publishing four original titles and eight republished volumes over four years, and also enabled Allen & Unwin to build an impressive Women’s Studies list. Sisters exploited mainstream publishers’ lists in the dissemination and distribution of feminist ideas to women readers in Australia in the early 1980s (1979–83). The five founding directors, who all managed their own publishing companies, established a sales and distribution relationship with independent, feminist and mainstream publishers.While Sisters is mostly remembered for poetry, its list also published short stories, biography and non-fiction, including the story of a remarkable woman who may have lived as head of God’s church on earth, The Legend of Pope Joan (1983). Feminist printing and publishing co-operatives/collectives were established from the late 1970s, including Sugar and Snails (originally the Non-sexist Children’s Book’s Collective, 1974), Sybylla Co-operative Press (1976), No Regrets (1979), Women’s Redress Press (1983) and Tantrum Press (1986). All aimed to publish and promote local women’s writing by shifting the boundaries of style, convention and form in Australian literature. In the late 1980s, anthologies of multicultural women’s writing and experimental writing, such as Beyond the Echo (1988) and Telling Ways: Australian Women’s Experimental Writing (1988), were followed by a number of titles commissioned by Penguin editor Susan Hawthorne (1987–91) which reflected the cultural diversity within Australian feminism. Women’s Redress Press also published bilingual collections reflecting European

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migration and migrant women’s experience in Australia, including Give Me Strength: Forza e coraggio (1989) and Who DoYou ThinkYou Are? (1992). In the 1990s Spinifex Press continued this trajectory, publishing a substantial list reflecting more recent Asian migration, including Merlinda Bobis’s fiction, White Turtle (1999), the Japanese–Australian duobiography Love Upon the Chopping Board (2000), and titles by Indian authors, including Suniti Namjoshi,Vandana Shiva and Bulbul Sharma. While Fremantle Arts Centre Press, UQP, Allen & Unwin, Spinifex, UWAP and Penguin have published Aboriginal women’s writing, the independent Aboriginal publishing organisations – Magabala Books, IAD/Jukurrpa Books and Aboriginal Studies Press – have significantly raised reader awareness of Aboriginal women’s writing, particularly through the publication of women’s lifestory. The prominence of Australian Indigenous women’s writing reflects the earlier mainstream acceptance and market success of women’s personal narratives, largely a political result of feminist agency at work across Australian publishers’ lists. Poetry has constituted an important element of feminist publishing, in spite of all the commercial reasons against it. The Redress anthology Up from Below (1987) followed the Penguin Anthology of Australian Women Poets (1986).When Judith Rodriguez was appointed Penguin’s poetry editor in 1990, she published a significant number of feminist poets. Anna Couani’s press, Sea Cruise, published poetry and experimental fiction during the 1980s, and Susan Hawthorne, who had been instrumental in initiating Penguin’s poetry lists, continued to publish poetry at Spinifex in the 1990s. Tantrum Press produced feminist multimedia performance works in audio, video and book form, and its regional publishing program was dedicated to short fiction, poetry and drama, including Around the Edge, a collection of South Australian feminist playwrights (1992). Tantrum Press also collaborated with the feminist theatre company Vitalstatistix in the publication of plays commissioned and performed by the company, including Weighing It Up and A Touchy Subject (1989). Sybylla Co-operative Press opened up experimental writing and publishing spaces with genre-bending feminist works: Frictions, an anthology of women’s short fiction (1982); A Gap in the Records (1985), a novel contesting power relations which pushes against the traditional spy narrative; Working Hot (1989), fiction in verse narrative and monologue, playscript

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and opera libretto; second degree tampering (1992), an anthology of short fiction, performance works, poetry and essays; She’s Fantastical (1994), women’s science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction; and Motherlode (1996), essays, performance pieces, poetry and short fiction. In the late 1980s cargo, a literary magazine, and Blackwattle Press began to publish gay and lesbian literature. In the 1990s mainstream publishers recognised the market for gay and lesbian fiction and queer theory, including Random House, Allen & Unwin, Hodder Headline, Hale & Iremonger, Pan Macmillan, MUP, Currency Press, Penguin and Hyland House. Allen & Unwin sponsored the publication of Michael Hurley’s first reference guide to Australian gay and lesbian writing with the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives (1996). Random House distributed two free samplers of contemporary gay and lesbian writing, published by the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Fruit Salad (1997) and 20 & lit. (1998), offering fiction, poetry, plays, humour, autobiography/biography, cookbooks, literary history and criticism, and textual and cultural theory. The publication and reception of lesbian feminist writing as a genre has not been taken up in the same way by mainstream markets.Within the ambit of the feminist project and lesbian literature, Spinifex continues to make a significant contribution in reflecting the diversity of lesbian writing in Australia and internationally, with genre-breaking titles such as Susan Hawthorne’s The Falling Woman (1992), Gillian Hanscombe’s Figments of a Murder (1995) and Finola Moorhead’s darkness more visible (2000). The publishing industry has undergone rapid technological and market change prompted by the entry of digital publishing, with on-line promotion, distribution and sales. Recognising the global barriers to women entering cyberspace, Spinifex has specialised in feminist cyberculture since the mid-1990s, publishing Dale Spender’s groundbreaking book on the development of print and electronic culture, Nattering on the Net (1995), and other titles including The Internet for Women (1996), and CyberFeminism (1997), a global anthology including cyberpoetry, hypertext, resources for on-line Women’s Studies and libraries and CD-ROM developments. Spinifex was one of the earliest Australian publishers (after Lonely Planet and CSIRO) to set up a website, launching the interactive Babel Building Site (1996) where visitors can contribute to Suniti Namjoshi’s novel, Building Babel, or find out what other feminist publishers are producing.

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Feminist publishing houses balance risky titles with more marketable books, as can be seen in the mix of their lists. Presses such as Fab, Tantrum and Sybylla have continued to produce risky titles. Spinifex has straddled both, publishing risky poetry, fiction and non-fiction titles and more marketable sellers in crime fiction, health, technology and women’s studies. Feminist law reformer Jocelynne Scutt, publishing under her imprint Artemis, has produced an eclectic range of autobiographical and biographical narratives through the Women’s Voices/Women’s Lives series. Her own essays, articles and speeches from twenty-five years of political activism are contained in the series The Incredible Woman, focusing on the theme of power and sexual politics. Scutt also wrote crime fiction as the pseudonymous Melissa Chan and edited the Artemis crime short fiction anthology series. In the 1990s the establishment of commercial feminist presses was something of a cultural imperative. The visibility and viability of feminist publishing in Australia was showcased at the 6th International Feminist Book Fair (1994) in Melbourne with a focus on Indigenous, Asian and Pacific writing and publishing. Trade visitors to the Book Fair commented on Australian feminist publishers retaining a fresh and irreverent challenge to ‘mainstream’ publishing content. Feminist publishers are aware of their paradoxical role as resisters of globalisation but also beneficiaries of it. While women’s writing has been successfully marketed as a ‘genre’, feminist writing representing issues of race, class, sexuality or disability is still marginalised by the media and booksellers. The contemporary role of feminist agency in publishing is to revision the terms and relations of cultural production by creating a site for wider debate and discussion, pushing through artificial boundaries and conventions of genre, and taking experimental writing and publishing risks in response to global publishing economies. NOTE ON SOURCES For a comprehensive overview of Australian women writers (1975–95), see www.nla.gov. au/events/ww.html. See also Bronwen Levy, ‘Different Views, Longer Prospects’, NLA seminar to commemorate the 20th anniversary of International Women’s Year, Women Writing: Views and Prospects 1975–1995. Pandora’s Archive is at the NLA, Sisters Publishing Archives are at the Baillieu Library, Melbourne University, and Sybylla’s Archive is at the State Library of Victoria. See also the Papers of Jocelynne Scutt 1982–94, NLA MS

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9396; case-studies of Sisters Publishing, Sybylla Feminist Press and Spinifex Press in Diane Brown, ‘Feminist Publishing in Australia (1976–96):Three Case Studies’, unpublished thesis, Monash University, 1997; Diane Brown, ‘Feminist Publishing in Australia: Cultural and Commercial Practices’, Overland 153, 1998, pp. 8–13; Diane Brown, ‘Feminist Publishing in Australia: Sisters Publishing 1979–83’, and an interview with Anne O’Donovan, Publishing Studies, no. 4, 1997. Also see Diane Brown’s PhD thesis, Publishing Culture: Commissioning Books in Australia, 1970–2000 (2003), in particular Chapter 5, and Diane Brown and Maryanne Lynch, ‘Creating a Space: Sybylla Feminist Press, 1988–2003’, Hecate, vol. 29, no. 2, 2003, pp. 285–96; Susan Hawthorne, ‘The Small Press with Big Rights Sales’, Journal of Australian Publishing, vol. 1 no. 1, 2005; Michael Denholm, Small Press Publishing in Australia:The Early 1970s, Sydney, Second Back Row Press, 1979, and The Late 1970s to Mid to Late 1980s, Melbourne, Footprint, 1991; Australian Women’s Book Review, vol. 2, June 1990; Michele Grossman, ‘Out of the Salon and into the Streets: Contextualising Australian Indigenous Women’s Writing’, Women’s Writing, vol. 5, no. 2, 1998, pp. 169–88; Alison Ravenscroft,‘Strange and Sanguine Relations: Aboriginal Writing and Western Book Culture’, Meridian, vol. 16, no. 2, 1997, pp. 261–71; Judith Rodriguez, ‘Behind the Orange Spine: Editing Poetry for Penguin’, Australian Women’s Book Review, vol. 3, no. 1, March 1991, pp. 16–17; Michael Hurley, A Guide to Gay and Lesbian Writing in Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin/Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, 1996; Trish Luker and Neal Drinnan (eds), Fruit Salad, Sydney, Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1997; Trish Luker (ed.), 20 & lit., Sydney, Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1998; Bandana Pattanaik and Susan Hawthorne, ‘Building Bridges Electronically: The Spinifex Experiment’, Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme, vol. 17, no. 2, 1997; Susan Hawthorne, ‘Electronic Publishing: Building Babel – A Case Study’, ABPA Seminar, CSIRO, 4 March 1996, and ‘Babel: What Are We Building?’, Booroondara Literary Festival, 9 May 1996.

Case-study: Multicultural Literature SONIA MYCAK Though Australia has always been culturally diverse, multicultural publishing on a significant scale really begins after the Second World War when immigration changed the very nature of society.Ten million immigrants have come to Australia since 1788. Of these, two-thirds arrived after 1947, making Australia one of the most multicultural countries in the world. A quarter of our population was born overseas, and many others have family experiences of migration. Any history of the book in Australia should take into account the literary productivity resulting from immigration and Australia’s cultural diversity. Fiction written by immigrants or their descendants is most apparent

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and readily available in the form of anthologies, the first of which appeared in 1963. Edited by American academic Louise E. Rorabacher, it was called Two Ways Meet: Stories of Migrants in Australia. Not surprisingly, this anthology was concerned with postwar European immigration. The stories were written by both immigrants and non-immigrants and in the editor’s view functioned as social history whereby fiction reflected fact. Interest in what Rorabacher called the ‘migrant theme’ appears in the work of Australian-born and immigrant alike, and its appeal to ‘a variety of authors’ is reflected in her anthology. The next collection to appear was quite different and was evidence of a writing culture that existed outside of conventional academic and publishing circles. English and Other than English: Anthology in Community Languages (1979) was a collection of texts in Italian, German, Hungarian, Dutch, Slovak, Serbian, Polish, Croatian and Estonian, with English translations. Published by Andras Dezsery, an author who himself had been a postwar immigrant, this was a bold attempt to circulate creative writing that was not only culturally diverse but written and published in languages other than English. In the preface, A. J. Grassby, then Commissioner for Community Relations, wrote: ‘This multilingual anthology makes history in Australia. It is a first attempt by anyone anywhere in Australia in 200 years to produce an anthology which recognises the multilingual and poly-ethnic nature of the Australian people.’ Four years earlier, Dezsery had established his own publishing company in Adelaide (Dezsery Ethnic Publications) for the specific purpose of publishing multicultural literature. He believed that migrant writers of various ethnic groups were often unable to find a publisher. Dezsery went on to publish numerous books in English and other languages through Dezsery Ethnic Publications. Titles advertised in the first issue of the journal Outrider included Crossing the Bridges by Tad Sobolewski (a collection of short stories in English), Bouquet of Poems/Buket Poema by Vlada Mancic (poems in English and Serbo-Croatian), and My Poem: Life, Part II/Versem Az Elet, Masodik Resz by Zoltan Vindis (poems in Hungarian). Dezsery’s endeavours bespeak the role played by individual facilitators who function as literary advocates, promoting literary activity and providing publishing opportunities. Another such facilitator was author and Brisbane academic Manfred Jurgensen, who established both a publishing

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company and a literary journal (Outrider) devoted to multicultural writing. In 1981 Phoenix Publications released its first title and the next multicultural anthology to appear on the literary scene. Ethnic Australia, edited by Jurgensen himself, was a collection of poetry and prose written in English – an attempt to include culturally diverse writing into mainstream national literature. Two years later the University of Queensland Press (UQP) published the first of three anthologies of multicultural literature: The Strength of Tradition: Stories of the Immigrant Presence in Australia, 1970–81, edited by R. F. Holt and reprinted several times. Like Rorabacher’s anthology, The Strength of Tradition was clearly a thematic collection. However, unlike Rorabacher, who was optimistic about the early interest shown in the immigrant experience, Holt was more restrained about the impact of culturally diverse writing, believing that ‘the overriding impression of Australian prose literature was one of cultural homogeneity’. Like Rorabacher’s text, Holt’s collection contained writing by both immigrants and Australian-born writers, although the divisions between them were much more clearly delineated and actually structured the book: ‘Its main focus is European immigration, from three points of view: the first generation European’s, the second generation European’s and the traditional or Anglo-Celtic Australian’s.’ The next anthology to appear similarly reflected postwar European immigration. Joseph’s Coat: An Anthology of Multicultural Writing was published in 1985 by Sydney-based Hale & Iremonger. Edited by poet and postwar immigrant Peter Skrzynecki, it was adopted for the NSW Higher School Certificate and went on to sell almost 15 000 copies. In his introduction, Skrzynecki made the point that this literary text was a product of the cultural diversity evident in wider Australian society. The connection between such writing and society became even more pronounced when the editor raised the issue of discrimination against writers who ‘have or had a basic language other than English’: If there has been discrimination, it has been against people such as these because they were ‘different’ – because they spoke a foreign language and were unwilling to sever the roots from which they grew . . . Those who have not experienced this kind of discrimination may smile in disbelief and choose to remain sceptical. That’s all right. There are plenty of others who know differently.

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The positioning of the editorial process as a political act was even more apparent in the next anthology to appear: Beyond the Echo: Multicultural Women’s Writing edited by Sneja Gunew and Jan Mahyuddin, published by UQP in 1988.This collection of women’s writing (by immigrants but also by the second and third generations) was intended as a kind of activism: ‘This anthology offers some women, writing from a diversity of non-AngloCeltic backgrounds, a place from which to speak and be heard. Its making is an act of positive discrimination.’ Another notable feature of this anthology was the editors’ rejection of conceptualising immigrant writing as social history. In what appears to be a direct rejection of Louise Rorabacher’s editorial stance, Gunew and Mahyuddin wrote:‘We looked for writing which went beyond recording and reflecting experience, beyond historical, journalistic modes.’The editors wanted to show ‘that non-Anglo-Celts contribute to literature as well as to oral history and sociology’. In 1991 UQP published the third of its multicultural anthologies. Again edited by R. F. Holt, Neighbours: Multicultural Writing of the 1980s was a companion volume to the earlier Strength of Tradition. Again this was a thematic collection and, like the earlier volume, it also imaged three different perspectives: that of the immigrant, the second and third generations, and the Anglo-Celtic Australian. What seemed to be different, however, was the social context, which for Holt had shifted in the previous decade: ‘Whereas in the seventies many writers with immigrant backgrounds felt disadvantaged by a “cloak of cultural invisibility”, the eighties witnessed a much wider acceptance of the multicultural theme by the more established publishers and journals.’ A year later, in 1992, a collection entitled Who Do You Think You Are? Second Generation Immigrant Women in Australia appeared, edited by Karen Herne, Joanne Travaglia and Elizabeth Weiss, and published by Women’s Redress Press. Unlike its predecessors, this collection addressed the specific experience of the second generation: ‘the children of immigrants . . . “living two cultures” as both second generation Australians and second generation immigrants’. More specifically, the focus was on the experience of second generation women: ‘We chose to focus on women because we were interested in the experience of being a second generation immigrant, not as an independent social category, but as it is lived, with all the complexity of overlapping identities.’

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The editors invited contributions from women who had been born in Australia of immigrant parents or who had come to Australia at an early age. Now, after almost half a century of postwar immigration, the editors could draw upon the experience of more recent arrivals from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. However, it was editorial strategy to include Anglo-Celtic voices too, not because they commented on the non-Anglo immigrant experience but because people from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales were also immigrants or had been immigrants at one time: ‘We were concerned to include an Anglo perspective to avoid perpetuating the myth that only people of non-English-speaking background are immigrants and “ethnic”.’ Peter Skrzynecki, by now an academic as well as a poet and novelist, edited another anthology, which appeared in 1997. Entitled Influence:Australian Voices, this volume was published by Anchor/Transworld. Although there was no longer any reference to ‘multicultural’ or ‘immigrant’ in the title, Skrzynecki made clear in his introduction that the project arose out of a multicultural experience. He also connected the current project with his earlier work editing multicultural writing: ‘. . . whereas Joseph’s Coat emphasised Australian writers from non–Anglo Saxon and nonCeltic backgrounds, I decided that this anthology would be approached from a different angle and would include writers irrespective of their origins’. Skrzynecki seemed to position his collection as consciously culturally diverse but then avoided cultural origin as a criterion of selection. Perhaps this was an attempt to avoid stereotypes and labels, or perhaps it signals a desire to move beyond earlier political struggles. This movement towards mainstreaming multicultural writing was also evident in Manfred Jurgensen’s editorial approach and the development of Outrider: A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia. Jurgensen established Outrider in 1984 and edited it until 1996. The first issue was unambiguously ‘. . . designated as a multicultural or ethnic journal’ and the aim was to proactively publish works by ethnic writers or works displaying ethnic themes. By 1988, when the bicentennial issue of the journal was published, the subtitle had lost its overtly multicultural focus, another editor had joined Jurgensen, and a mainstream publisher was involved. Outrider: Australian Writing Now , edited by Jurgensen and Robert Adamson, was published by Outrider and Penguin Books. It was now

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‘an anthology of contemporary Australian literature which does not accept the distinctions of “mainstream”, “ethnic” or “marginal”’. Indeed it did not seem to accept the concept of a national literature at all: ‘Australian Writing could be a document demonstrating a more embracing concept of literature, one which is no longer determined by the criteria of a “national” culture.’ No longer defined by the multicultural alone, this volume sought to exemplify diversity across society: Featured in this collection are prominent writers of ‘mainstream’ AngloCeltic literature, migrant, ‘ethnic’ or ‘multicultural’ artists, literary and cultural expressions of Aboriginals, works composed by authors who are unemployed, writings from a sub-culture and critical analyses by academics.

Two years later, Outrider 90: A Year of Australian Literature (edited by Manfred Jurgensen and published in Brisbane by Phoenix Publications) retained its original aim of imaging cultural diversity, but again there is a sense that the editor was striving to express a wider social and artistic heterogeneity: [Outrider’s] aim has been to expand the concept of Australian literature by pleading for a stronger representation of so-called migrant writing. It was never envisaged that these literary works should appear in isolation. The present anthology is an attempt to collect a representative range of Australian writing, from all sections of the literary arts and society.

From the outset Outrider had had financial assistance from the Literature Board. While it remained a substantial publication, other lesser known journals also provided an important outlet for multicultural writers. Migrant 7 was a series of booklets, obviously produced at a low cost and presumably inexpensive to buy. Writers who were active in the performance poetry scene in Melbourne (such as Myron Lysenko and Eric Beach) featured, as did others who wrote on ethnic themes. Little information was provided. Number 4 gave a contact address in Melbourne, but otherwise there were no details of publication. No editor was named and no editorial statement featured, but judging by the subject matter and certain other features (number 4, for example, lists the contributors’ country of ‘origin’ alongside their names), the series was committed to circulating multicultural fiction.

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Another modest but important publication was The Saturday Club Book of Poetry, published in Sydney by The Saturday Centre of Poetry (SCOP) during the 1970s. This publication was subsidised by various government bodies, including the Literature Board. SCOP, established by Kenneth and Patricia Laird, was not exclusively dedicated to ethnic or immigrant writing, but did provide early opportunities for multicultural writers because of a commitment to diversity and community (nonprofessional) writing. In his preface to English and Other than English: Anthology in Community Languages, A. J. Grassby outlined the importance of SCOP, which: not only publishes a quarterly literary journal in a range of languages, but has a ‘voice prints’ program on a monthly basis . . . There are regular readings by Aboriginal writers and others from Spain, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Yugoslavia, Greece, Portugal and China.

Community writers’ groups have played an important role in fostering the talents of culturally diverse writers. Multicultural writers’ associations have provided a forum for grassroots literary activity, where people using English as a second language can read their work and receive feedback in a supportive environment. Such activity could be part of a larger cultural structure (such as the Fellowship of Australian Writers), but notable are the groups formed specifically for immigrant and culturally diverse writers. Some of these have published quite substantial collections. Multilingual Authors Association of S.A. Inc:The First Step was published in Adelaide by Dezsery Ethnic Publications in 1982, assisted by a SA Ethnic Affairs Commission grant.The impetus had been an ‘Ethnic Writers Read’ evening during the 1982 Writers Week in Adelaide when members of the association met together and presented their work in English and in other community languages. Here We Are: An Anthology by the Migrant Women Writers’ Group was published in Melbourne by the Migrant Women Writers’ Group in 1989, subsidised by Women’s Trust Ltd, the Good Neighbour Trust Fund and the Victorian Ministry for the Arts. This group also published The Word Is Round (1985) and Migrant Women’s Voices (1986). Voicing the Difference: Stories and Poems by South Australian Writers of Diverse Cultural Backgrounds was published in Adelaide by the Multicultural Writers’ Association in association with Wakefield Press in 1994.

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Publication was assisted by the South Australian government through the Department for the Arts and Cultural Development and the South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission. Although edited by Peter Moss, the idea for an anthology of writings by South Australians of diverse cultural backgrounds had been first suggested in 1992 by the then president of the Multicultural Writers’ Association, Andras Dezsery. Many Voices: An Anthology of Multicultural Community Writing was edited and published by the MAG Literature Team in 1995. MAG (Multicultural Arts Geelong) was a project of the Geelong Ethnic Communities Council. Accents: A Commemorative Collection of Literary Works by Members of the Queensland M ulticultural Writers Association was published in 1995. Publications such as these signify a localised literary network, usually of a non-professional nature, that survives with or without government funding. However, neither the products of multicultural writers’ groups nor the anthologies published by mainstream presses are true indicators of the wealth of multicultural publishing in Australia. For by far the most prolific writing – the bulk of the production, distribution and reception of multicultural texts – occurs not in the mainstream cultural establishment, nor is it evident in visible products such as Englishlanguage anthologies; rather, it remains hidden within the many diverse ethnic communities. Australia has over one hundred language groups and thousands of ethnic community associations. Within these communities exist literary networks. Authors, usually writing in their native tongue, produce texts that are circulated within their own ethnic community. Often written for this specific audience, poems, prose and plays are recited and performed at cultural events and festivals, or published in community newspapers and periodicals. Books and anthologies are published, either by the authors themselves or by literary and cultural associations within the ethnic community, usually without any assistance or financial subsidy from the mainstream Australian cultural establishment. Literary activity is thus enacted within the ethnic community itself.Texts are consumed and purchased by a known audience, and that audience is either the ethnic community in Australia, an international diasporic community (of which the Australian ethnic community is a part) or the original homeland. A small percentage of work is written or translated into English. The bulk

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is produced for the ethnic community and circulated solely within that community. Bibliographers have made a solid attempt to record Australian multicultural writers and their most significant works. Despite their worthy efforts, however, writing of this type – confined as it is within ethnic communities – offers a veritable cornucopia of untapped material. Any comprehensive study that documents the history and development of this kind of multicultural writing would need to be structured so as to include each culturally and linguistically diverse literary culture in its own right. As no single scholar could have knowledge of all these cultures and communities, such a project would require the collaboration of those versed in the languages and literary cultures of the different multicultural writing communities. The literary history of multicultural publishing largely coincides with the massive postwar immigration program, which has brought settlers from all over the world to Australia in the last fifty years. Consequent developments in multicultural literature signal the growth of a distinct print culture, which has been mostly outside the conventional realms of the Australian publishing industry. Ironically, the most visible and readily available literary products, while significant in themselves, do not accurately reflect the entire body of work within the many ethnic communities. While difficult to map, given the breadth of cultural and linguistic diversity in contemporary Australia, the development of multicultural publishing is nonetheless an intrinsic part of Australia’s national literary history. NOTES ON SOURCES Lolo Houbein, ‘Survey of ethnic and migrant writings in Australia: Work in progress’, ASL Working Papers, Adelaide, 1976; Lolo Houbein, Ethnic writings in English from Australia: A bibliography, ASL Working Papers, special issue, Adelaide, 1978, rev. edn 1984; Derek Whitehead, Radha Rasmussen and Anne Holmes (eds), Multiculturalism and Libraries: Proceedings of the National Conference on Multiculturalism and Libraries held at Monash University 7–11 November 1980, Melbourne, 1981; Peter Lumb and Anne Hazell (eds), Diversity and Diversion: An Annotated Bibliography of Australian Ethnic Minority Literature, Melbourne, Hodja Educational Resources Co-operative Ltd, 1983; Alexandra Karakostas-Seda, ‘Creative writing in languages other than English in Australia 1945–1987’, unpublished MA thesis, Monash University, 1988; Sneja Gunew, Lolo Houbein, Alexandra Karakostas-Seda

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and Jan Mahyuddin, A Bibliography of Australian Multicultural Writers, Centre for Studies in Literary Education, Deakin University, 1992; Barry York, Our Multicultural Heritage 1788– 1945: An Annotated Guide to the Collections of the National Library of Australia, National Library of Australia and Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies, Australian National University, 1995; Marisa Cano (ed.), Directory of Multicultural Writing Groups with Resource Information for Non-English-Speaking-Background Writers, Sydney, NSW Writers’ Centre, 1999; Sneja Gunew (ed.), Displacements 2: Multicultural Storytellers, Deakin University Press, 1982 and 1987; Sonia Mycak and Chris Baker (eds), Australian Mosaic: An anthology of Multicultural Writing, Heinemann, 1997.

CHAPTER 10

For Children and Young Adults Robyn Sheahan-Bright Children’s publishing after the war was influenced by Australia’s accelerated cultural and economic growth, and by an increasing American influence. With the postwar baby boom came changing attitudes to children and the identification of children as a consumer group or market, resulting in unprecedented attention to children’s books. As early as 1945, New South Wales established a Children’s Book Week and associated awards, leading to the formation in 1958 of the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBC), which held its inaugural meeting in 1959. Library and educational growth in turn spearheaded the development of educational publishing by both local and international publishers. In particular, British and US companies established local branches to take advantage of these new market opportunities, bringing with them valuable expertise. Andrew Fabinyi, an immigrant from Hungary and later Cheshire publisher and lifelong advocate for children’s literature, wrote of the situation prior to the war: I still recall my own bewilderment when I entered the Australian book world in 1939 to find that Australian children spend, in their books, Christmas amidst snow-capped mountains . . . I did not of course then, as I do not now, think that our children should read books of Bondi Beach, Ayers Rock or the Back of Bourke only – a de-nationalised, or to put it more constructively, a trans-national literature should be offered to children with their first

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books – but I did not think that they should be fed almost exclusively with the values and charming provincialism of the British Isles.

Despite the growth of local book production during World War II, caused by the difficulty of obtaining imports, the output of children’s books was poor, and the only significant illustrated book was Mary and Elizabeth Durack’s The Way of the Whirlwind (1941). With shortages of paper and equipment, a continuing lack of publishing knowledge (stemming from Australia’s colonialist beginnings), and a lack of strong institutional support from libraries and the educational sector, printing standards were generally low. By the 1950s, however, stationers John Sands and Company and other publishers such as OUP, Cheshire, Longman, Lansdowne, Rigby and Angus & Robertson (A&R) were paving the way forward in response to perceived educational demands. Leslie Rees’s books for John Sands included the inaugural CBC award winner, The Story of Karrawingi the Emu (1946). Key individuals in the development of children’s books included Andrew Fabinyi of Cheshire, Frank Eyre of OUP, Beatrice Davis at A&R, Enid Moodie Heddle at Longman and illustrator Margaret Horder. The 1960s and 1970s were decades of consolidation and expansion in children’s publishing, characterised by increased professionalism, the growth of multinationals, company takeovers, changes in printing, and growth in library and school funding. Children’s book production costs were reduced by offshore printing, beginning in 1963 with Joyce Nicholson’s Kerri and Honey, the first Australian book to be printed overseas, a breakthrough that enabled publishers to increase print runs and lower unit costs. It opened the door for companies such as Collins, Penguin and Scholastic into the uncharted territory of high-quality picture books. A new recognition of children’s literature included developments in picture-book publishing, along with the popularity of paperbacks and new Australian children’s fiction. Children’s editors were appointed and professional bodies and reviewing journals were established. The first specialist children’s bookshop, The Little Bookroom, opened in 1960 in Melbourne (see Chapter 8), and the CBC’s journal Reading Time (which had begun in 1957 as a newsletter) began in 1967. When the Australian Book Review began in 1961, it contained a Children’s Books and Educational Supplement throughout the 1960s, and Rosemary Wighton also published

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her Early Australian Children’s Literature (1963). Children’s editors actively sought talented new authors and designers, leading to the creation of quality picture books. These had been virtually non-existent prior to the 1970s. After the untimely death of the first Australian children’s editor, Joyce Boniwell Saxby (1923–64), appointed in 1963 at A&R, she was succeeded briefly by John Abernethy and then, from 1965 to 1972, by Barbara Ker Wilson who played an important role in achieving international recognition for A&R’s children’s books (see case-study). Publishers began to use the services of trained teachers and children’s librarians in their editorial work and the pattern of mutual cooperation between the library market and the publishing industry resulted in books of a more sophisticated production standard, catering to Australian – often educational – interests. Australia had absorbed many people from different cultural backgrounds and those new strands in the pattern of living also provided novelists with rich material. The publication of the first two volumes of Maurice Saxby’s A History of Australian Children’s Literature (1969, 1971) celebrated the industry’s growing success. Publishing takeovers and mergers, though often seen as a retarding influence, were part of the economic reality of a growing industry, providing working capital for expansion and investment. The most dramatic was Gordon Barton’s takeover of A&R in 1970 (see Chapter 3). David Harris became A&R’s children’s editor (1973–1979), followed by Jennifer Rowe, who was children’s publisher before A&R became part of HarperCollins in the late 1980s. With writers and illustrators such as Ruth Park, Ivan Southall, Patricia Wrightson, Mavis Thorpe Clarke, Joan Phipson, Ted Greenwood and Olaf Ruhen (all acquired before the takeover), the A&R list was very influential. Companies such as FW Cheshire and Lansdowne lost their independence, while for others such as Rigby these were prime years. Rigby’s successes included Colin Thiele’s first book, The Sun on the Stubble (1961), and his enduringly popular Storm Boy (1963) which was commended in the 1964 CBC awards. Editor Ian Mudie had an eye for Australian works, as did his successor at Rigby, publishing manager Michael Page who collaborated with internationally acclaimed illustrator Robert Ingpen on books with a mythological focus. After James Hardie Ltd’s 1979 takeover, Rigby ceased to wield any influence in children’s publishing, though

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several staff members, such as Jane Covernton, Sue Williams, Dyan Blacklock and Bill Scott, went on to play roles elsewhere. At Thomas Nelson, Anne Godden and Al Knight were keen to build on their educational publishing successes, offering Beatrice Davis the job of editing their new trade list from her Sydney home. (Robert Sessions took over at Nelson when Godden and Knight left to establish Hyland House.) Davis edited Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow (1980) for Nelson and it won the 1981 CBC Book of the Year Award. When Sessions left to establish his own imprint, he took with him writers and illustrators he had discovered such as Graeme Base, Pamela Allen and Peter Pavey who later went with him to Penguin. Lisa Highton joined Sessions at Nelson in 1977 and ‘managed to produce at least a dozen good books a year’, before the UK company decided to cut back and concentrate on educational and other ‘specialised works with a guaranteed market’. Highton left in 1979 after Nelson became part of the new International Thomson group which had been established the previous year. Methuen was another overseas publisher whose local list grew, directed by Elizabeth Fulton from 1977 to 1981, with works of quality, including multilingual publishing such as Libby Hathorn’s Stephen’s Tree (1979). The firm was eventually sold in 1987 to Thomson, which then sold the Methuen general and children’s lists on to Paul Hamlyn’s Octopus Publishing, part of Reed International. Increases in government support for education and libraries brought greater institutional buying power and new book markets, along with stronger incentives for the provision of local books for children. From the 1970s most state libraries appointed children’s specialists to advise public libraries on services and selection. The introduction in 1974 of Public Lending Right (PLR) payments to authors and publishers to recompense them for the loss of sales incurred by library borrowing offered another industry bonus, which led to lobbying to introduce a similar scheme for educational lending libraries (finally introduced in the postGST era). More publishers – small and large, local and overseas – began to develop children’s lists. A key publisher in the development of the Australian picture book was the firm of William Collins & Sons whose local managing director Ken Wilder introduced an Australian list, beginning

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with Geoffrey Dutton’s Tisi and the Yabby (1965). Spurred on by that success, Wilder encouraged further acquisitions, working first with editor Steve Dearnley to present ideas and information in fresh new ways. In 1966 Dearnley discovered Sam Wakefield’s Bottersnikes and Gumbles (1967) which in the new spirit of realism was set in a bush rubbish dump. Its success indicated the potential demand for children’s books on everyday Australian themes. In 1971 Collins appointed Anne Bower Ingram as its children’s book editor. Her picture books included Lydia Pender and Judy Cowell’s Barnaby and the Rocket (1973) and Deborah and Kilmeny Nyland’s rollicking classic Mulga Bill’s Bicycle (1973).The Indigenous texts by Dick Roughsey and Percy Tresize were traditional Aboriginal stories in picture-book form directed at a mainstream audience for the first time. Ingram also encouraged stage designers like Desmond Digby and artists such as Judy Cowell, and in 1974 established an Australian stand at Bologna (eight years after Barbara Ker Wilson’s pioneering attendance). Ingram remained at Collins until 1980, publishing works by Lilith Norman and Michael Dugan’s bestselling Stuff and Nonsense (1974) among others. Penguin Australia did not begin developing its children’s list until well into the 1970s. However, Penguin’s first Australian paperbacks included Rosemary Wighton’s Kangaroo Tales (1963), its first local children’s title (see ‘Penguins and Puffins’ case-study). Managing director John Michie asked Bob Sessions to start an Australian Puffin list, and he produced such groundbreaking works as The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek (1973) by Jenny Wagner and Ron Brooks, which won the CBC award in 1974. In 1977 the Australian Puffin Club began (ten years after its British counterpart) and became another enormous success. John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat was published in 1977 and won the 1978 CBC award, before Kay Ronai accelerated development of the list. McPhee Gribble, the small packaging company established by Hilary McPhee and Di Gribble, produced the Practical Puffins series for Penguin, with titles such as Carpentry, Cooking and Gardening, and the series eventually reached three million sales worldwide. Another important force at this time was Ashton Scholastic (later Scholastic – see case-study). Hodder & Stoughton had drawn on the wide experience of Barbara Ker Wilson, who introduced books by Mavis .

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Thorpe Clark, Ivan Southall, David Martin, Jean Chapman and Ruth Manley (whose fantasy novel The Plum-Rain Scroll was 1978 CBC Book of the Year). She handed over the children’s list in 1974 to Margaret Hamilton, whose books included There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake by Hazel Edwards and the Grug series, which sold nearly half a million copies. Robin Klein topped off the decade when her The Giraffe on Pepperell Street received a special mention in the Critici in Erba Prize at Bologna in 1979. Not every list was thriving, though. Despite Frank Eyre’s successes up until he retired from OUP in 1975, his successor David Cunningham found that the business though profitable was vulnerable. He did, however, begin Oxford’s local children’s publishing, with Rosalind Price as the editor. Price built the list, followed by Rita Scharf (Hart), and it became the company’s most profitable section. Over the years OUP nurtured Alison Lester, Terry Denton, Ann James and Robin Klein who became some of the most respected of Australian artists. By the 1980s children’s publishing had entered its most prosperous era, characterised by a proliferation of new forms and genres, a particular interest in visual texts and picture books, and the development of Young Adult fiction. The takeover trend continued with A&R merging with Collins to become Murdoch’s HarperCollins in 1989, increasing children’s publishing development. The pinnacle of critical acclaim for Australian books was reached when the 1986 Hans Christian Andersen Awards were presented in Tokyo to two Australians – Patricia Wrightson and Robert Ingpen. Growth was also reflected in the establishment of Magpies magazine and the increased national pride and self-confidence of such landmark titles as the picture book My Place (1987) by Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins, the junior novel Penny Pollard’s Diary (1983) by Robin Klein and illustrated by Ann James, and novels for older readers, Gillian Rubinstein’s Space Demons (1986) and Nadia Wheatley’s The House That Was Eureka (1984).The decline of fantasy after the Second World War was also reversed, with Victor Kelleher and Isobelle Carmody following in the path of CBC award winners Lee Harding (Displaced Person, 1979) and Ruth Park (Playing Beatie Bow, 1980). These new writers addressed social problems with honesty and frequently used confronting language. The decision by Penguin to expand its local children’s publishing paid off handsomely. In 1980 it published seventeen new Australian books

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under Kay Ronai’s editorship, increasing to thirty-five in 1987. One of Ronai’s new acquisitions was Robin Klein, and she discovered the work of Paul Jennings in 1984 while wading through Penguin’s manuscript ‘slush pile’. The Jennings stories were eventually published as Unreal! (1985). His later dominance of the bestseller lists and the dramatic shifts in publishing make it hard to recall just how different Australian children’s literature was in the early 1980s, when the gatekeepers determining the size and nature of the children’s book market were school librarians and the Children’s Book Council. A notable facet of Jennings’ success was that his books were paperbacks. Schools had formerly preferred hardbacks and it was also an unwritten rule that ‘only hardback children’s books could win awards’. Both ‘rules’ were to change, and even though Jennings didn’t win the CBC award (though he consistently won ‘Kids Own’ awards) his sales and popular reputation have grown and schools have contributed enormously to his sales. In 1987 (when Ronai went freelance) the stewardship of both the adult list and the children’s list at Penguin was entrusted to Julie Watts, who had joined the company in 1980 from McPhee Gribble. In 1988 she headed a newly formed children’s department, supported by Bob Sessions who had returned with, among others, Graeme Base. Animalia (1986) was released as a Robert Sessions Book with a Penguin/Viking logo and has sold almost three million copies worldwide. Co-publishing with Omnibus in the late 1980s brought such names as Mem Fox, Julie Vivas, Gillian Rubinstein and Craig Smith to the list. During the 1990s Watts worked with Erica Irving (Wagner), who later went to Allen & Unwin, and then with Laura Harris, formerly of HarperCollins. Watts left Penguin in 2005. Since the 1970s local titles had displaced imports, particularly in the educational field. Several independent children’s publishers were fired by nationalistic fervour, feeling strongly that British influence was still too great in Australia. Omnibus Books (see case-study) exemplified this trend and has been seen as a driving force in the growth of children’s publishing. Another new publisher was Walter McVitty Books, established by Walter and Lois McVitty in 1985 when they published John Pinkney’s The Key and the Fountain (1985) and then Colin Thiele’s Seashores and Shadows (1985). They went on to publish the groundbreaking So Much To Tell You (1987) by John Marsden. One of the most influential new

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publishers was Allen & Unwin, which had established its Australian branch in 1976, beginning a children’s imprint with Rosalind Price at the helm in 1988. Their list has included picture books, junior and Young Adult novels, and innovative non-fiction series (such as True Stories). Price’s publishing has captured and created new markets and helped to launch the careers of several writers and illustrators, among them Kim Gamble, John Nicholson, Anna Fienberg, Alison Lester and Natalie Jane Prior. Other local publishers included Fremantle Arts Centre Press, which capitalised on the critical and popular reception of Albert Facey’s A Fortunate Life (1981) and Sally Morgan’s My Place (1987) with shortened editions for young readers edited by Barbara Ker Wilson. Hyland House flourished with award winners such as James Aldridge’s The True Story of Lilli Stubeck (CBC Book of the Year: Older Readers 1985), Gillian Rubinstein’s Beyond the Labyrinth (CBC Book of the Year: Older Readers 1989), Mary Steele’s Arkwright (CBC 1986 Junior Book) and Gillian Rubinstein’s Galax-Arena (CBC Book of the Year: Older Readers 1993). University of Queensland Press invited Barbara Ker Wilson to establish the first Australian Young Adult list in 1985, attracting new and established writers including James Moloney, Brian Caswell, Judith Clarke, Jill Dobson, Sue Gough, Michael Noonan and Maureen Pople. She later added a junior readers list, Storybridge, with authors such as Peter Carey, Louise Elliott and John Fairbairn. Greater Glider Productions was established in 1983 by Jill Morris ‘to produce high quality materials for children across all media’, and its first production was a 65-episode Australian drama serial, Bangotcher Junction, which premiered on BBC Radio in the United Kingdom in 1983. In 1985 Greater Glider Productions packaged the Animals of Oz series and in 1987 the Aussie Swag series. Margaret Hamilton Books (MHB) was launched at the end of July 1988 with Who Killed Cockatoo? by W. A. Cawthorne, a bicentennial edition of a nineteenth-century work, with new illustrations by Rodney McRae. Several small creative publishers were from the smaller states: South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. Jam Roll Press, a Queensland-based company established by Leonie Tyle, Robyn Sheahan and Robyn Collins, published its first book in 1990, and was purchased by UQP in 1994.Tyle has continued as UQP’s children’s editor, producing powerful Young Adult fiction and pioneering Young Adult verse novels as a publishing genre.

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Australia’s oldest publishing company, Lothian Books, was founded in 1888 by John Inglis Lothian (1851–1940) to represent British publishing companies. The company moved into children’s publishing when Louis Lothian appointed Anne Bower Ingram as a children’s book consultant in 1982, followed by Margaret Dunkle in 1987, and the children’s list became a feature of the company’s publishing in the 1990s. Helen Chamberlin joined Lothian in 1990, became children’s editor in 1994, and has established a list of both critical and commercial success, including picture books for older readers by Gary Crew, Shaun Tan and others, and series for teenagers such as Crime Waves, After Dark and the innovative multi-authored Quentaris Chronicles. Gary Crew’s contribution to the list has been substantial, including not only his picture books and Young Adult novels but also his role as commissioning editor of several series. Peter Lothian purchased the McVitty list in 1997 and Lothian itself was sold in 2006 to Time Warner which has since sold its books division to Hachette Livre. Children’s niche publishing grew slowly, represented by companies such as Era Publications (founded in 1971) and Magabala Books, an Indigenous publisher established in Broome in 1987. Since the advent of Magabala, mainstream houses have also begun publishing Indigenous texts (notably UQP with its Black Australian Writers series). Children’s lists have also begun to include more Indigenous material. Koala Books, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2001, with Cathy Tasker as editor, has produced lively picture books for young children and innovative series such as Tadpoles non-fiction and fiction titles, or ‘chapter books’ for readers from six to ten years old. The 1990s, for independents and multinationals alike, were challenging times. Even Scholastic’s book club sales waned, despite continuing educational market success. Penguin continued to play a huge part in breaking new ground in format and content, but found it harder to make the necessary overseas sales (see Penguin case-study). Julie Watts put it this way: In this country we have a situation where – so unlike the 1940s when we proclaimed our Britishness – we are proclaiming our Australianness and boasting our multiculturalism. Witness the enormous success here of Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi, the book about growing up Italian in Australia . . . [but] books like Melina’s . . . are rare and our small population means

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a pretty tiny market for children’s books. And though Australia has one of the best book-buying populations in the world, that market is oversupplied, not only from a number of Australian publishing houses . . . but with competition from imports as well.

But the biggest change was in public awareness. Children’s authors became, if not always celebrities, at least public personalities. Despite a perceived decline in overall market growth, publishing achievements stemmed from the effectiveness of mass-market approaches. The growth and influence of non-traditional sales outlets resulted in series publishing, retail-oriented packaging, ‘crossover titles’, bestselling authors, and the further blurring of the line between mass-market and literary publishing. Four 1980s discoveries who became the bestselling authors of the 1990s – Paul Jennings, Morris Gleitzman, ‘Emily Rodda’ (aka Jennifer Rowe) and John Marsden – appealed to a broader audience than the well-known authors of earlier decades. Jennings even outstripped bestselling adult author Bryce Courtenay in the 1995 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) survey of most popular author, with sales of six million copies since he started writing for children in 1985. In the mid 1990s, Jennings’ estimated annual earnings approached a million dollars. Emily Rodda’s Deltora Quest (2001) series also established her as one of Scholastic’s hottest properties, with sales of more than 8 million copies worldwide, and a planned television series. Significantly, Jane Covernton and Sue Williams opted for a niche market when they started Working Title Press in 1997 to produce picture books for very young children. Few smaller publishers survived to greet the new millennium, save for Greater Glider Productions and Era Publications. Random House launched Mark Macleod Books in 1990, with new authors including Margaret Clark, Gretel Killeen, Christine Harris, Glyn Parry and John Larkins, and award-winning books such as Way Home (1994) by Libby Hathorn and illustrator Gregory Rogers – which in 1995 became the first Australian picture book to win the prestigious UK Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration. Innovative design and contemporary style were hallmarks, as was a willingness to combine popular with erudite product. The shock closure of Mark Macleod’s list in 1999 in the wake of Random’s takeover by Bertelsmann was followed (in truly cyclical fashion) by Macleod being almost immediately offered the opportunity to establish

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a list at Hodder Headline where Belinda Bolliger (and later Ana Vivas) was children’s publisher. Linsay Knight continued at Random House. HarperCollins also produced an international list edited by Lisa Berryman, and ABC Books also became an influence later in the decade. New publishers appeared, such as Black Dog Books and Little Hare Books, and international marketing and licensing became more important for companies such as Little Hare Books, Five Mile Press, Hinkler Books and others. Agents such as Choicemakers and the Australian Licensing Corporation assisted Australian publishers with this push into the overseas market. The CBC has continued to promote literature, and the addition of new award categories, the formation of the Awards Foundation in 1996 and the growth in the number of books submitted (from 14 in 1959 to 365 in 2005) reflect its influence. Several new institutions now support Australian children’s publishing, such as the Australian Centre for Youth Literature, the Fremantle Centre for Children’s Literature and Books Illustrated (a gallery, bookshop and educational centre in Melbourne). A new magazine, Viewpoint on Books forYoung Adults, and a growing network of writers centres and schools festivals such as the Somerset Celebration of Literature as well as the proliferation of author tours have all assisted in increasing the profile of Australian children’s writing. The major features at the end of the period were the growth of mass marketing and the diminished influence of libraries as institutional purchasers. While independent lists were purchased by multinationals, and Scholastic maintained its supremacy, several newer lists also appeared. Technological developments presented further challenges, to which the industry responded with both niche marketing and a greater focus on the international market. By 2005 children’s publishing had become one of the greatest success stories of the Australian industry – Andrew Fabinyi would be amazed at just how far it has come in just a few short decades. NOTE ON SOURCES This overview is drawn from my PhD thesis, ‘To Market to Market:The Development of the Australian Children’s Publishing Industry’, Griffith University, 2004, which contains an extensive bibliography.

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Case-study:The Children’s Book Council of Australia MARK MACLEOD In September 1945 Mary Townes Nyland of the United States Information Service Library in Sydney hosted a dinner for a small number of Australian authors, publishers, librarians, teachers and ABC employees to discuss the possibility of a children’s book week. From this meeting developed the organisation that has had more influence than any other on Australian books for children and young adults: the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBC). The CBC began as an organisation based in the state branches, and was not national until 4 November 1958. ‘From the outset,’ says Maurice Saxby, ‘its aims have been twofold: to encourage children to read while pointing them to literature of quality; and to promote the publication of worthwhile literature for children.’ Although these aims have been pursued in a number of ways, the main work of the CBC has been the judging and promotion of its Book of the Year awards, which began in 1946 and became particularly powerful with the introduction of a short list in 1982. From over 400 titles entered, a short list of up to six titles in each of five categories is now published four months before the winners are announced in Children’s Book Week. The list is used as a buying guide, and in those four months titles are frequently reprinted as they are discussed in the media and in schools. Saxby clearly anticipates criticism of the increased importance of the education market and the inference that the constituency of the CBC has narrowed when he says that ‘the Council has always been broadly based and, from the beginning, has shown its awareness of the broad spectrum of child readers and their varied needs and interests’. Significantly, ‘editors and those associated with the making of children’s books’ are specifically excluded from the CBC judging panels: writers, illustrators, designers, editors and publishers of any book entered are ineligible. In addition, a judge must not have been involved in the development of a book at manuscript stage or been the subject of a book’s dedication. Saxby’s parenthesis ‘(rightly so)’ indicates some defensiveness about this anomaly on the part of the CBC by the mid-1990s. (The book in which his essay is published is co-edited by Margaret Hamilton,

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a children’s publisher, former national president of the CBC, and head of the CBC Awards Foundation, which she set up to raise $1 million to fund the awards in perpetuity.) Clearly, the twin aims of those who set up the Children’s Book Council – to promote the reading of ‘literature of quality’ by children and the publication of ‘worthwhile literature for children’ – have proved to be not entirely compatible. If the consumption of children’s books is considered, children and adults do not necessarily agree on the criteria for excellence (and this is amply demonstrated by the ‘children’s choice’ awards since the 1980s). Just as adults read for sheer entertainment some of the time, children will not always reach for ‘literature of quality’. And from a production perspective, a publisher in a small market like Australia is unlikely to be profitable if it tries to depend without subsidy on ‘worthwhile literature for children’ alone.To say so, of course, is to accept for the moment the CBC’s implication that mass-market literature is not ‘worthwhile’. The growth of an Australian children’s book publishing industry meant that the volunteer members of the CBC lost control of some of its original endeavours, such as publicity for children’s books and the establishment of children’s library services, which became the work of paid professionals. And the CBC has been so successful in promoting the publication of children’s books that in this aim it has done itself out of a job.This is surely a factor in its reluctance to relax its control over the Book of the Year awards by broadening the criteria of eligibility for judging. The sixth aim of the CBC’s constitution emphasises education and librarianship in specifying ‘subject matter’ and ‘format’ of the best children’s books. And the annual judges’ reports underline these concerns in an often pedagogical tone. At times more space in the judges’ report is devoted to condemnation of an award winner than to praise. In 1970 Colin Thiele’s novel Blue Fin was runner-up for Book of the Year, an award at that stage called ‘Highly Commended’. After praising the book’s originality and vitality, the judges added a full paragraph on its weaknesses: ‘. . . the book is marred by faulty structure.The episodes in the first half of the book relate to but are not part of the struggle which ensues in the last part.Thiele takes too long to come to the point. Also he has a tendency to over-write in that there is, in places, an over-abundance of imagery.’ It is

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hard to envisage the judges of a literary award for adult fiction using their reports to teach readers and writers in such a detailed way. Most Australian children’s books that are not intended for the mass market are sold through various channels in the education market, so this emphasis on evaluating the educational aspects of a book is not surprising. The judges’ 1969 report clearly implies that young readers may have to be ‘taught’ to enjoy the winning novels. Of the winning novel, Patricia Wrightson’s I Own the Racecourse, it says, ‘Unfortunately the cover does not attract and the theme may deter those readers for whom it is meant. It is a book that will have to be introduced to children, but the pleasing literary style, the humour and vitality of this entry should make it a book children will remember.’ The remark that ‘the theme may deter those readers for whom it is meant’ makes the pedagogical use of such a book quite clear. In the same report, however, there is a note of weariness in the judges’ comments on the runner-up, Ivan Southall’s Let the Balloon Go. ‘The illustrations and dustjacket are not of a high standard. The format of the book indicates that it is intended for the 9–11 years, but the emotional content makes it more suited to older readers. It is another book that will have to be introduced to the reader.’ To some extent the development of ‘children’s choice’ awards from the 1980s relieved the CBC of any obligation to grapple with the issue of whether its awarded books were popular with young readers or not, and aligned the Book of the Year awards even more closely with their use in schools. A marked divergence emerges between adults’ and children’s choices, for example, when it comes to humour. Writers such as Andy Griffiths, Duncan Ball, Margaret Clark, Gretel Killeen and John Larkin, who feature regularly in the children’s choice awards, have never been short-listed by the CBC. None of Paul Jennings’ short story collections has been short-listed. (After ignoring Jennings for years, the CBC almost perversely gave him an award for a joke book.) In the 1990s, at the same time as they rejected the criterion of popularity with children, the judges’ reports became longer and more detailed and increasingly critical of publishers. While the 1998 report acknowledges that there are factual errors in John Nicholson’s A Home Among the Gum Trees, it is still judged the winner of the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. And yet in 1997 the judges reported at length

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on ‘lower standards of editing and production values’ in the publishing industry, specifying spelling, grammar and typographical errors, the bulking-up of books with graphics and running heads, and singling out the repeated confusion between ‘lay’ and ‘lie’ and ‘it’s’ and ‘its’. ‘We felt,’ they said, ‘some authors had been very ill-served by their publishers: in a few glaring instances, faults such as these may have cost them a place on the shortlist.’ The frequency with which these reports castigate the publishing industry becomes so great that what may seem at first a sympathetic attempt to gain leverage for editors facing budget cutbacks soon polarises into the easy us-and-them so familiar in Australian cultural commentary. No doubt the position of a last bastion against commercialism adopted by the CBC was originally motivated more by the power of television and fast food than by any opposition to publishers, but the view of publishers expressed in the judges’ reports hardened and tended to align the CBC more strongly than ever, if not with charitable good works, then with education. The popularity of a book with children and the crass commercialism of publishers are linked. Although the awards were given government funding in the 1960s and 1970s, the end of that funding in 1988 directly challenged the CBC’s position on commercialism. The CBC was forced to seek sponsorship from publishers and got it. Then a generous sponsorship by Myer-Grace Bros from 1989 to 1993 was not renewed, basically because of the CBC’s reluctance to promote the sponsorship and because increasingly the short-listed books were perceived as not selling in the general trade. Sponsorship again came from booksellers and publishers, and in 1996 Margaret Hamilton acted somewhat against her own position as a publisher to help the CBC preserve its stand against commercialism by setting up the CBC Awards Foundation with former bookseller June Smith.The women committed themselves to raising $1 million so that the Book of the Year awards could be self-funding. Of course, although schoolchildren have donated their pocket money and parents have endured trivia nights to reach this goal, the major benefactors of the Foundation are publishers. So the CBC’s projected independence of commercial interests is more apparent than actual and must be so.

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Case-study: Postwar Pioneers MARCIE MUIR In the aftermath of the Second World War, Australian publishing was still very small in a country of less than seven million people struggling to recover from the discouraging years of the Depression and the war. As outlined in the previous case-study, librarians from the US Information Service Library in Sydney helped achieve better Australian books for children. Their concern resulted in a meeting in Sydney in 1945 which resolved to establish an annual Children’s Book Week as well as an annual award for the best children’s book. Large English publishers with branches or agencies in Australia began sending out experienced staff, such as Oxford University Press’s Frank Eyre, to expand their sales and grasp the opportunities offered by this promising market. With a personal interest in book production, Eyre thoroughly understood the need for quality, and was enthusiastic about good children’s books. Shortly after he arrived, however, Oxford University Press (OUP) decided that all children’s publications by Australian authors would come from their London department which Eyre had managed before coming to Australia. George Ferguson returned from the war and in 1949 took charge of Angus & Robertson’s (A&R’s) publishing. He was ambitious for the firm to take full advantage of the times and to regain its reputation. He also wanted to encourage higher standards of book production in Australia, and together with other leading publishers, including Frank Eyre, Sam Ure Smith, Gwyn James from Melbourne University Press and Andrew Fabinyi from Cheshire, formed an Australian Book Publishers Association. At this opportune moment Margaret Horder, a brilliant young illustrator with an understanding of good book design, returned to Sydney from England. Ferguson was fortunate that she approached him, and through her influence A&R’s children’s books reached a high standard. Horder had trained in Sydney under Julian Ashton and had worked in London for various publishers, including OUP, where Frank Eyre had encouraged her freer style of integrating illustrations with the text. Working on Nan Chauncy’s They Found a Cave for OUP had made her nostalgic for home. She recognised the relationship between illustration and printing,

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and when she began to illustrate children’s books for A&R she was able to work with Halstead’s printers to achieve better design. Her influence led to the fresh and original children’s books the firm published in the 1950s and early 1960s. Later, when A&R’s leading children’s authors, Joan Phipson and Patricia Wrightson, had moved to other publishers, Horder continued to contribute to their success with her accomplished and sympathetic illustrations. Other publishers such as Rigby, Longman, Macmillan and Nelson, better known for their educational books, eagerly branched out into children’s fiction, with increasing success. Ivan Southall at A&R was prominent with his ‘Simon Black’ air adventures, until, guided by Barbara Ker Wilson, he ventured into serious fiction, and ‘problem novels’ began to appear under his name, to wide acclaim and financial success. Rigby cautiously tested the water in 1959, and in 1960 brought out one children’s book per month, then increased the number quite rapidly. In 1961 Rigby published The Sun on the Stubble by Colin Thiele, which became a landmark book by this outstanding author. By this time the government was under pressure to improve school libraries, to improve literacy and to provide support for the training of school librarians. In 1968 legislation was passed providing financial assistance to all secondary school libraries, and the $27 million subsidy assisted authors, artists, publishers and booksellers. Similar subsidies continued to be provided at fixed intervals and without doubt have been the mainstay of the present flourishing industry. With branches in all states and territories, the Children’s Book Council of Australia gradually raised public awareness and helped develop quality in the content and appearance of children’s books. Quality paperbacks, led by Puffins (see case-study), made children’s books more popular. Paul Hamlyn’s cheaply priced books flooded some sections of the market in the 1960s, leading to an increased number of mass-market books, some produced by local publishers. Lansdowne Press, a new imprint, seized the advantage of improved black-and-white photography to publish a series of large, lavishly illustrated sports books which were popular with both adults and children. Encouraged by this success, Landsdowne brought out a smaller series for young children. Gradually colour reproduction improved and became less costly, and the first of a

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small number of very beautiful picture books appeared, to immediate acclaim. Annette Macarthur-Onslow’s Uhu (1969), the story of a baby owl, was a sensation, astonishing for its beauty and novelty. It was followed by Desmond Digby’s classic Waltzing Matilda, published by Anne Bower Ingram for Collins, heralding further inspired books. What a year 1973 was for picture books: Mulga Bill’s Bicycle, with illustrations by the incomparable Niland twins; the first of the books illustrated by Dick Roughsey (Goolbalathaldin), The Giant Devil Dingo; and The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek by Ron Brooks and Jenny Wagner. In a global environment with many large publishers targeting an international market, it was heartening to see an Aboriginal publisher such as Magabala Books succeeding in this competitive field. It has proven the market’s enthusiasm for Aboriginal texts and illustrations. Whereas male publishers and editors dominated the local scene for many years, women are now prominent and a feminist influence may be detected. Current fiction for older children engages with topical social issues such as drugs, homosexuality, multiculturalism, homelessness and Aboriginality. Over the last two decades there have been many highlights. It was not just the film which aroused such enthusiasm for Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow but the delight in a romantic story. Gillian Rubinstein’s Space Demons alerted readers to a new and compelling storyteller, Robin Klein’s Penny Pollard books attracted readers for their humour and vitality, and Victor Kelleher’s Master of the Grove gained many ardent readers in the United States and Europe as well as in Australia.The phenomenon of Mem Fox’s Possum Magic in 1982 introduced a clever new author, a dedicated new publisher and a brilliant illustrator. Nadia Wheatley and Donna Rawlins’ My Place entranced readers here and abroad. Perhaps the number one sensation of the 1980s was Graeme Base’s Animalia, a striking, clever and skilfully marketed picture book. For some readers the 1990s were undoubtedly the decade of Paul Jennings. For others it was the compelling books of John Marsden, who showed with his first book, So Much to Tell You (1987), how he could grip a child’s attention. Among all the writers and illustrators of the decade perhaps the work of Aboriginal artist Bronwyn Bancroft has attracted my greatest enthusiasm. Children’s books have grown from a handful to the hundreds now submitted to the CBC judges each year. The need for high-quality children’s

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books is taken for granted, and children’s book awards and book weeks are no longer events of great public interest. The crusading spirit of the early years has passed and public enthusiasm is concentrated on other media, suggesting that the importance of books needs to be stressed now perhaps more than ever.

Case-study: Building New Lists BARBARA KER WILSON Before I came to Australia in 1964 I had worked in England with the Oxford University Press (editing Eleanor Farjeon’s The Little Bookroom, among many other publications), then as managing editor of children’s books at The Bodley Head and subsequently at William Collins. Angus & Robertson (A&R) at that time had named Joyce Saxby as its first children’s editor. Sadly she died shortly after her appointment, having produced two anthologies of Australian verse for children: her own Chosen for Children and Rosemary Dobson’s Songs for All Seasons. During my first visit to Sydney from my home base in Adelaide, I accepted George Ferguson’s challenge to build a separate young books list for A&R, the first to be formed in Australia. I worked on this from Adelaide, with regular visits to Sydney, and received wholehearted support from editors John Abernethy, Beatrice Davis and Douglas Stewart. A&R had of course published a number of children’s books over the years (the very first A&R novel, published in 1897, was Teens by Louise Mack) and the backlist was a valuable asset.The venture encouraged many new and established writers, including Hesba Brinsmead, Jean Chapman, George Finkel, author/illustrator Ted Greenwood, Christobel Mattingley, Ruth Park, Nance Donkin and Celia Syred, while Ivan Southall continued to develop his talent with award-winning novels. Two of the firm’s adult authors, Olaf Ruhen and Eric Rolls, also contributed to the list. Aboriginal culture made a deep impression on me. We published Kath Walker’s collection of stories Stradbroke Dreamtime, and a selection of Dreamtime legends collected by Daisy Bates. (Later, I conceived the idea of publishing an Aboriginal version of Alice in Wonderland – Alitji in the Dreamtime. With a text adapted by Nancy Sheppard in both English and Pitjantjatjara, this was published by the University of Adelaide.)

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Non-fiction for young readers at A&R included a series of Asian Picture Histories: The Story of China, by Lo Hui-Min, illustrated by Elaine Haxton, was presented to Chairman Mao Zedong by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. (The impetus for this series arose from my astonishment that my children were being taught only English and European-based history at school.) The fact that A&R maintained a branch office in London was very useful: we published in both Australia and the United Kingdom, which helped the selling and buying of overseas rights. In 1966 I attended the Bologna Book Fair (the first Australian presence there), representing Rigby and Ure Smith as well as A&R, and also the Frankfurt Fair, later visiting European and American publishers in their home territories. A number of A&R children’s books appeared in overseas editions, and I also bought rights in American and European books for the A&R list. My aim was to achieve an international Australian list. In 1970 I went to Munich to present a large collection of books produced by various Australian publishers to the UNESCO International Youth Library. Following A&R’s 1970 takeover by IPC, I spent a few months at the London offices and on returning to Australia decided to resign. (For the next decade or so the A&R children’s list was directed with considerable flair by David Harris and then by Jennifer Rowe, before A&R was again taken over, this time by HarperCollins in the 1980s.) My next destination was Hodder & Stoughton Australia (1970–74), where Eddie Coffey invited me to set up an Australian children’s list. I was now living in Melbourne, with Marilyn Naylor as my assistant at Hodder’s Sydney offices. More new authors emerged, among them Cliff Green and sisters Ann Farrell and Sally Farrell (later Odgers). David Martin sent us three excellent teenage novels and we published Jean Chapman’s anthologies of stories and verse illustrated by Deborah and Kilmeny Niland. The list was just establishing itself when an accident forced me to resign, but it was enthusiastically extended by my successor, Margaret Hamilton. She produced some of the books I had accepted, such as Ruth Manley’s CBC winner, The Plum-Rain Scroll. In 1977 I joined the Reader’s Digest as editor of Condensed Books, which proved an invaluable experience, especially in acquiring the skill of shortening books using only the author’s words. Later I would produce

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shortened versions of a number of adult books for young readers, including Margaret Trist’s Morning in Queensland (retitled Tansy), Sally Morgan’s My Place, Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One and Lee Cunxin’s Mao’s Last Dancer. After leaving the Digest in the mid-1980s, I was asked by Laurie Muller at UQP to start Australia’s first teenage or ‘Young Adult’ list. It was UQP’s first venture into books for young readers and I received enthusiastic help from editors D’Arcy Randall and Clare Forster. Once again a host of talented new writers emerged, with most manuscripts appearing ‘out of the blue’. I have always believed that there is treasure to be found in the pile of unsolicited manuscripts. In this way Brian Caswell, Judith Clarke, Jill Dobson, Julia Holland, James Moloney and Maureen Pople, among others, joined the UQP list. Other prize-winning books arose from contact with writers such as Sue Gough and Michael Noonan and from poet and novelist Dorothy Porter. Maintaining my involvement with Aboriginal culture, I edited a number of titles on UQP’s Black Writers list, and later Herb Wharton and Melissa Lucashenko produced books for young readers. We then started the younger ‘Storybridge’ list, to which several of our Young Adult writers contributed, as well as Peter Carey and new authors such as Louise Elliott and John Fairbairn. At this juncture (1994) I suggested that UQP might consider bringing the Brisbane-based Jam Roll Press under its umbrella. Jam Roll, founded in 1988 by Leonie Tyle, Robyn Collins and Robyn Sheahan, had established a strong picturebook list, with illustrators who included David Mackintosh and Greg Rogers. Leonie Tyle joined UQP with Jam Roll and two years later became my very able successor as children’s publisher. In 2000 I completed fifty years in the publishing trade. I experienced enormous changes along the way: a revolution in printing technology, the continuing era of takeovers, and the advent of computers, with on-screen editing and the promise of electronic books. Today, the status of the editor within a publishing company has changed considerably, with the majority now working on a freelance basis, as I myself continue to do.

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Case-study: Omnibus Books JANE COVERNTON Looking back to the beginnings of Omnibus Books, it is difficult not to be envious of the climate and time in which the small company was created. The year 1981 now seems very propitious, and Adelaide, the place where it all started, appears like a tiny Mecca in the wide world of children’s book publishing. But at the time neither of the company’s two founders, Sue Williams and myself, had any idea where Omnibus would take us. We were two enthusiastic women, with a background in editing, art direction and book production gleaned from several years at Rigby, who shared a hearty frustration with an industry dominated at the top by men, with women doing most of the work. Spurred on by the achievements of Hilary McPhee and Diana Gribble, we decided to go it alone. We chose children’s books because it gave us a chance to focus and combine our skills and resources for a niche market. Until 1981, the output of Australian children’s books had been pretty minimal. Angus & Robertson, publisher of The Magic Pudding (1918) and Dorothy Wall’s Blinky Bill (1933), had continued over the decades to publish a small range of important and original children’s books, such as Patricia Wrightson’s I Own the Racecourse (1968). During the 1970s a handful of English-owned companies had also begun to raise the profile of Australian picture books. But the real function of the British subsidiaries was to disseminate their imported titles, not to publish books for this market. Few Australian picture books made their way back to the territory of these parent companies. Many potential picture books, I suspect, failed to be considered by the subsidiaries because they would not provide sufficient return for a company used to working in a world market. As a result, by 1981 the market for original Australian children’s books was very under-exploited. Omnibus began as a packaging business in a tiny room in a tiny cottage in Adelaide, putting together books for other publishers. Its first success was a series of poetry books for primary students, which netted a profit of $13 000. In 1982 we invested this in a picture book called One Woolly Wombat, written by Rod Trinca and

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illustrated by Kerry Argent. The first edition of 5000 copies sold out a week before the official launch and within the first twelve months we were forced to reprint several times. The book has since gone on to sell close to 500 000 copies in the Australian market. This book’s success led us to believe that the time was right for a strong children’s publishing industry and that it was possible to publish just for the Australian market and survive. Even more importantly, it indicated that there had been a huge sea change in the attitude of Australians to their culture. The fierce nationalism of the Whitlam era had given rise to a new generation of adults eager to see their landscape, their history, their people, their speech and even their humour reflected in the books they read and in the films and plays they saw. These adults were also parents who wanted Australian books for their children. The phenomenal reception of Possum Magic by Mem Fox and JulieVivas in 1983 only served to reinforce these assumptions. Australian children’s books were suddenly big business and the 1980s were the halcyon years for this medium and for the Australian book industry as a whole.With the success of Possum Magic and One Woolly Wombat, Omnibus Books became the signature publisher of quintessentially Australian picture books. In the early years, both Sue and myself encouraged books with a uniquely Australian flavour, such as Sebastian Lives in a Hat (1985) by Thelma Catterwell and Kerry Argent, and the illustrated Australian poetry collections, Someone Is Flying Balloons (1983) and Rattling in the Wind (1987). If the text was not necessarily set in a specific time or place, we encouraged illustrators to reflect their own surroundings and give the story their own slant. Thus Dreadful David (1984), written by Sally Odgers and illustrated by Craig Smith, shows us the rusty corrugated-iron fences and the faded mauve jacaranda trees of an instantly recognisable inner-Adelaide suburb. Julie Vivas’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (1984) did not contain much in the way of an overt setting at all, but what little was there on those fresh white pages was very Australian. Indeed the very use of white space in this book was in itself Australian. As Sue wrote in The Inside Story: Creating Children’s Books (1987), ‘Australian picture books usually look spacious and uncluttered and contain very strong horizontal lines, whereas European books tend to be very highly detailed with very little if any white space and the major lines are vertical.’

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For similar and different reasons, too, the interpretation of that most universal story, The Nativity (1986), could not have been created by anyone other than an Australian.There is the same freshness and use of open space in the illustrations, but there is also a way of depicting this story that gives it new life and meaning. Rather than concentrating on the more traditional and formal religious nature of the story, Julie Vivas has chosen to engage with its emotional and human aspects. The result is a warm, informal and even humorous interpretation, which nevertheless manages to evoke the integrity and wonder of the story. The Nativity was a risky book. But the relative freedom and confidence of the times encouraged us to take risks and complemented our notion of what childhood should be. Omnibus books were based on the premise that childhood should be about being loved, feeling safe, having fun, and growing up with optimism and hope. Underlying this premise was the right of a child to be individual and different and equal. Violence, racism, sexism and nihilism had no place in our books. Neither did mawkish sentimentality, heavy-handed moralism and unquestioning conventionality. Omnibus books were on the child’s side. This child was a bit ruder and cheekier than most and it dared us to have fun and take risks. Books such as Putrid Poems (1984) and Doug MacLeod’s and Craig Smith’s Sister Madge’s Book of Nuns (1986) were positively encouraged by the Omnibus child. The early Omnibus picture books were also the result of Sue Williams’ very fine art direction. They are elegant and spare, sumptuous and rich, uncluttered but warm. And the fact that many of them still sit on the bookshelves today is a tribute to her skill in drawing out the best in Australian illustrators. Finally, the development of Omnibus Books owes much to the town in which it began. Adelaide never was and never will be a hub of Australian publishing. But its very isolation was in many ways Omnibus’s early salvation. It forced us to tap into the wealth of local talent that surrounded us and led us to discover new and exciting authors and material. Mem Fox described herself as an ‘overachieving mature age student’ when she came into Omnibus Books with a manuscript she had written during a children’s literature course at Flinders University. It had been rejected nine times by publishers around Australia. Kerry Argent, illustrator of twenty or more picture books, was a third-year student studying

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illustration when her first book, One Woolly Wombat, was accepted. Gillian Rubinstein maintains that her bestselling first novel Space Demons (1986) was written on a bridge table in the laundry when her family left for school and work. An earlier draft of this novel had been rejected without comment by a large publisher the year before. All three of these writers and illustrators have gone on to world reputations in their field, and their US publishers now come to Adelaide to discuss new projects. Sue Williams and I left Omnibus Books in 1997 to form Working Title Press. Sue has since left children’s books altogether to pursue an academic career. But I still work in a slightly larger cottage in Adelaide. The time is not as propitious for the children’s book industry as it was in 1981 and the market is far from under-crowded and under-exploited. However, there are still many times when I get excited by the talent in this country and the work of new authors and illustrators that comes across my desk. In the next few years I hope that some of these people and their books become as well known as the creators of Possum Magic, One Woolly Wombat and Space Demons.

Case-study: Scholastic Australia ROBYN SHEAHAN-BRIGHT Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd is an arm of Scholastic Inc., founded in Pennsylvania in 1920 by Maurice E. Robinson as a school magazine publisher. Set amidst sweeping paddocks, Scholastic Australia has been based at Gosford, north of Sydney, since 1973, with Australian operations beginning in 1968. It is now the sixth biggest book publisher in Australia, with over four hundred employees. One of the great achievers in Australian children’s publishing, it is also something of an enigma. This huge US-based multinational operates in sixteen countries, with wholly owned operations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK. Each mirrors the parent company in publishing and distributing children’s books, magazines, school texts and educational software. Their success stems from the fact that Scholastic becomes a ‘local’ operation wherever it operates. ‘We create a mini-Scholastic in any country we go into,’ says Richard (Dick) Robinson, president, CEO and son of the company founder. In

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Australia it has become influential largely because it has concentrated on developing strong links with local publishers and a loyal client base. Sometimes accused of monopolising the school book trade via its book clubs and fairs, it also produces an influential literary trade list and now owns Omnibus Books and Margaret Hamilton Books, two of the most respected children’s publishers. Scholastic also ploughs money back into industry bodies such as the CBC Awards Foundation, and it has been actively engaged in overseas educational relief programs. Few publishers have attracted more loyalty from their staff, though authors and illustrators often criticise the low level of royalties on book club sales. However, Scholastic’s ability to expose them to new and often inaccessible buyers is one of its great strengths. Anomalies and contradictions abound. The company has been accused of exposing children to mass-market ‘hype’, such as through the hugely successful Babysitters Club, yet its trade publishing list has produced innovative and awardwinning titles like Libby Gleeson and Armin Greder’s The Great Bear, which in 2000 became the first Australian winner of the Bologna Ragazzi prize. Over more than three decades, Scholastic Australia has developed successful school-based operations with magazines, book clubs and book fairs – and also trade publishing lists. In 1964 Ernest Schwehr (who became Scholastic Inc.’s international director) was sent on a mission to discover ‘new markets’, and met Derek Price and Terry Hughes, the founders of H. J. Ashton Ltd in New Zealand which already had an educational base as agents for Scholastic. A book club project was trialled using Scholastic club names (Lucky, Arrow and Teen Age), followed by a full operation the following year. To provide capital, H. J. Ashton was reorganised, with Scholastic holding 75 per cent of the voting stock. After the Book Club idea went well, a similar enterprise was launched in Australia in April 1968, managed by Alan and Olive Izod, reporting to Terry Hughes. In that year 35 000 books were sold. The company began to originate its own titles, too, because of the shortage of suitable materials, buying the paperback rights to publish its first Australian title, The Golden Lamb by Irene Gough, in that September’s Book Club. Terry Hughes, Myra Lee and Jim Reece moved to Australia from New Zealand in 1970 to join the management team, and Ken Jolly (the current

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managing director) also joined the company. Leonie Sweeney, now corporate communications manager, joined in the same year. In 1971 Book Club went national, and Myra Lee (Book Club manager for the next thirty years) pulled off a publishing arrangement with Puffin. The Club concept was introduced with a huge mail-out and by using educational contacts. By 1972 Book Club was producing over 5000 orders. Scholastic Inc. acquired Ashton’s shares and the company became a wholly owned subsidiary: Ashton Scholastic. When they discovered that the number of books ordered by one country school exceeded the town’s population, they knew that book clubs would be a success in Australia. In 1974 nearly two million books were sold. Within a few years of start-up, Scholastic Australia had become one of the largest educational publishers and distributors in Australia, with an office in every state and an impressive range of new school programs, including Adaptation of Language and How to Use It, Reading Systems, Core Library, Impact and Read It Again. Product expansion continued, with books for teachers and titles for beginners and early readers. In 1978 Scholastic bought Oldmeadow Booksellers (after the death of Court Oldmeadow in 1977), which included three Victorian shops. Joyce Oldmeadow welcomed the company’s offer to also act as trustee to the Dromkeen collection which she and her husband had established. This culminated in the purchase in 1985 of the historic Dromkeen Homestead and children’s literature museum (outside Melbourne) as a permanent home for the collection. In 1979 Terry Hughes, the original Ashton owner, left to take up a post as executive vice-president of Scholastic International Division and Ken Jolly became managing director. With The Riddle of the Trumpalar (1981) Scholastic Australia began trade publishing, which has since become a significant part of the business. David Harris joined the company in 1985 as publishing manager. Some of the early books he published were award-winners, such as Raymond Meeks’ Enora and the Black Crane (1991) and Simon French’s Change the Locks (1991), and he has been responsible for selling foreign rights, particularly at Bologna each year. His later trade publisher role involved liaison with media companies such as Warner, Disney and Lucas, and coordination with overseas Scholastic companies. Other new ventures followed the creation of the trade list, with

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Classroom magazine for infant and primary school teachers launched in 1981. The Lettering Book sold almost 200 000 in its first year, becoming one of the company’s biggest bestsellers. In 1983 Eyespy, an environmental and discovery magazine for children, was launched, followed by Junior Topics and Senior Topics magazines. In that year Scholastic presented the inaugural annual Dromkeen Medal to Lu Rees. The Star Book Club was introduced in 1983 and in coming years Scholastic launched the Wombat Book Club and its ‘biggest magazine seller’, Lucky, for five- to eight-year-olds. In 1990 Scholastic purchased M & M Educational Suppliers and soon after acquired Bookshelf from Horwitz Graham. In 1991 Book Club was faced with serious competition from Troll, a club enterprise founded in Canada, which Scholastic bought out three years later. Scholastic celebrated twenty-five years in Australia in 1993 and Australian Standing Orders commenced as another highly successful part of the Scholastic empire. In 1994 Myra Lee won the inaugural ABPA Pixie Award for her contribution to Australian children’s publishing, and the company officially changed its name from Ashton Scholastic to Scholastic Australia. The CBC Awards short list that year included no fewer than seven Scholastic titles. Scholastic Inc. celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1996, when Alf Mappin became children’s publisher and Margaret Hamilton Books joined the Scholastic Australia stable. Recent educational ventures have included Wiggleworks, the first Australian CD-ROM-based literacy program, and the award-winning Reading Discovery series. Scholastic’s Book Fair operations began in 1985, when it purchased Scholars Choice from Rigby. In 1999 Panorama Bookfairs, begun by Penguin and Pan Macmillan, was also absorbed, just eighteen months after it began. Scholastic’s greatest successes, however, have been its five book clubs: Wombat for children 0–5, Lucky (5–8), Arrow (8–10), Star (10–14), and Teachers Bookshelf for teachers. Eight times a year club choices are sent out to schools, reaching a claimed 80 per cent of all primary schools. Authors receive only 3 per cent royalties on these sales. David Harris argues that book club sales are to those customers who never visit bookshops and thus are add-on business for author and publisher alike. Australia’s other children’s publishers rely on the clubs, too, to extend print runs and

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thus lower their unit costs. The only other major children’s book club, Doubleday, operates by direct sales to individuals rather than through schools. With trade publishing, Scholastic has gone on to produce books for all age groups. As well as distributing its overseas imprints, and its Australianoriginated titles, it has purchased the lists of independents like Omnibus, and has distributed for ABC, Koala Books and Roland Harvey (until it became part of Penguin in 2001). At the end of 2002 David Harris retired to become a consultant and Andrew Berkhut took over in 2003. Australian company turnover that year was $83 million and Australian titles now represent around 40 per cent of overall sales. Its multinational parent, Scholastic Inc., is now the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books in the world – a $2 billion company with 10 000 employees. Its US trade publishing produces 500 new titles each year, and imprints include Scholastic Press, Cartwheel Books, Scholastic Paperbacks, Arthur E. Levine Books, Scholastic Reference, Blue Sky Press and Orchard Books. It owns thirty-five school-based US magazines, operates book clubs for every grade level, and has ten book fairs used by half a million teachers and nearly 40 million families. Scholastic Australia is unique in catering only to the children’s market. It has used a number of strategies to expand an already successful operation, nurturing a passionate belief in product among its staff. As well as capturing the schools market, it has incorporated successful competitors by either buying them outright or offering distribution and management support. Finally, it has always stayed ahead of trends, matching new programs to current educational theories and developing a multimedia presence long before anyone else. Whether you admire the company or not, it is indisputable that Scholastic has played a crucial role in developing the Australian children’s publishing industry. NOTE ON SOURCES Company records include Ashton’s Circus Staff Magazine, Scholastic Australia, superseded by Scholastically Speaking; interviews with Leonie Sweeney and Myra Lee, November 2000; Jack Lippert, Scholastic: A Publishing Adventure, Scholastic Book Services, NY, 1979; Peter Gouldthorpe, ‘Being an Illustrator Must be Lovely’, Island, no. 82, 2000, pp. 48–54; David Harris, ‘Offering Australian children’s books to the world’, Claiming a Place: The CBC Third National Conference 3–6 May 1996, Conference Papers, Brisbane, CBC, 1996,

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pp. 44–50; Susan Hely, ‘The Unfunny End of Kids Stuff ’, The Australian Author, vol. 30, no. 2, 1998, pp. 19–25; Cindy Lord, ‘Fair Play’, in Courier-Mail, BAM, 14 October 2000, p. 6; ‘Myra Lee’, in Reading Time, vol. 42, no. 1, 1998, p. 8; Glenn Sanislo, ‘Scholastic Inc: 75 years Strong’, Publishers Weekly, vol. 242, no. 46, 1995, p. 29; Scholastic website: http: www.scholastic.com; David Stewart, ‘Bringing Books and Children Together: Ashton Scholastic’s Contribution to Children’s Literature and Reading’, Orana, August 1990, pp. 129–34.

Case-study: Penguins and Puffins ROBIN MORROW One of the first three titles published by Penguin Australia in 1963 was Kangaroo Tales, an anthology of stories for children edited by Rosemary Wighton and illustrated by Donald Friend. Penguin became an agent for change, especially in the growth of the picture book and in encouraging the Australian voice, sometimes humorous, often forthright, in fiction for children and especially for teenagers. Puffins had begun in wartime Britain with a series of factual picture books and Puffin Story Books. In the early 1970s Bob Sessions had responsibility for children’s publishing at Penguin Australia. He nurtured the picture books written by Jenny Wagner and illustrated by Ron Brooks, The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek and John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat, which helped establish an Australian identity for children and adults. Sessions also acquired paperback rights from Angus & Robertson for Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding, with a first print run of 100 000 copies. In the United Kingdom Kaye Webb had made Puffin the dominant children’s imprint. Much of this success was due to the Puffin Club, founded in 1967. Ten years later Pam Sheldrake began the Australian club, rushing about the continent organising parties and competitions. At its peak the Australian Puffin Club had 12 000 members who received Puffinalia magazine and bought Puffins. Most titles were imported, and the challenge was to find local books that the United Kingdom would also buy. The non-fiction Practical Puffins broke this barrier. Copublished by McPhee Gribble, the twenty-two titles reached sales of three million worldwide.

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Penguin needed to originate more of its own titles, as many hardback publishers were now producing their own paperbacks. In 1978 Brian Johns appointed Kay Ronai as editor responsible for children’s books. Those were heady days, as attempts were made to woo authors to paperback publication, against the conservative view that hardbacks ensured library sales and were preferred by the Children’s Book Council judges. Kay Ronai worked on the children’s list single-handedly until 1980 when Julie Watts joined as secretary. All sorts of writers and artists were asked if they were interested in working for children. Some of the unconventional books which appeared in the early 1980s included Jack in the Bush (Giles/Greenhatch) with pictures of a naked boy, The Train by Generowicz, a clever, long, fold-out book, impossible to handle, and Elmer the Rat by Patrick Cook. Most of all, the adventurous spirit was reflected in fiction for teenagers. Penguin UK had tried several imprints, including Peacock and Puffin Plus, but the niche which was to become known as Young Adult publishing was not well established. Groundbreaking local books in the mid-1980s included The House That Was Eureka by Nadia Wheatley, which brought Depression history into the present, Mullaway by Bron Nicholls with its hard-hitting realism, and the psychological thriller Displaced Person by Lee Harding. Patricia Wrightson was the pioneer of incorporating Aboriginal Dreamtime motifs into fantasy writing. Other fantasy writers for Penguin were Victor Kelleher and Isobelle Carmody. In 1982 Pat Adam became responsible for children’s marketing. Her twenty years with Penguin, and the contribution of Rosanne Turner and Nancy Mortimer in educational sales, built a strong market presence.The 1980s saw the discovery of two bestselling writers for the middle years of childhood, with Paul Jennings’ Unreal! and Robin Klein’s Hating Alison Ashley. Kay Ronai’s discovery of Jennings was the stuff of publishers’ dreams. She had taken a pile of unsolicited manuscripts home and started reading them at breakfast. ‘The Skeleton on the Dunny’ gave her ‘the tingly feeling of discovery that doesn’t happen very often’, and she asked Paul for more. There were risks involved. Short stories were reputed not to have child-appeal, and Jennings’ subject matter challenged the gatekeepers. After a slow start, Unreal! took off, and so began the career of the writer who has done most for ‘reluctant readers’.

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Co-publishing with Omnibus Books in the late 1980s brought such names as Mem Fox, Julie Vivas, Gillian Rubinstein and Craig Smith to the list. Bob Sessions returned to Penguin in 1987, bringing with him Graeme Base, Jane Tanner and Caroline MacDonald, and Julie Watts became publisher of the newly formed children’s editorial department, recruiting trainee editors such as Erica Irving. Picture books were again of prime importance, with Base’s bestselling Animalia and the 1989 joint winners of the Picture Book of the Year, Base’s The Eleventh Hour and Allan Baillie and Jane Tanner’s Drac and the Gremlin. Pamela Allen wrote and illustrated many books which consistently met the needs of the very youngest age group. The children’s list of fifty or sixty books per year expanded further in the 1990s with co-editions and buy-ins (including the Magic Eye series, which sold more than 700 000 copies). Penguin provided for the series fiction craze of the 1990s with Wicked! and Deadly!, ‘novels in six parts’ co-authored by Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. And the Aussie Bites series catered for newly proficient readers with plot-driven stories, the Aussie Nibbles for lower primary aged children, and Aussie Chomps for upper primary or readers starting high school. In the Young Adult area, Melina Marchetta’s first novel, Looking for Alibrandi (1992), about Italian-Australian life, pleased critics and readers alike. This novel and others by authors such as Maureen McCarthy and Sonya Hartnett are also published in adult editions. Keeping the door open to unsolicited manuscripts resulted in the discovery of Philip Gwynne’s Deadly Unna? (1998), winner of the 1999 CBC Book of the Year (Older Readers) award. Five of the six titles short-listed for the 2000 CBC awards in the Older Readers category were from Penguin, including the radical feminist novel Killing Aurora by Helen Barnes. At century’s end the most apparent gap was in novels for upper primary/lower secondary readers, such as those provided by mainstay authors of the 1980s and early 1990s Libby Gleeson, Simon French, Robin Klein, Ruth Park and Allan Baillie. In 1999 Julie Watts became executive publisher and Laura Harris was appointed publisher of children’s books, overseeing a dynamic list of eighty new Australian titles each year. When she left in 2005, Watts’ legacy was a thriving list which continues to grow.

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NOTE ON SOURCES Geoffrey Dutton, A Rare Bird: Penguin Books in Australia 1956–96, Ringwood, Penguin, 1996; Linda Lloyd Jones, ‘Fifty Years of Penguin Books’, Fifty Penguin Years, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985; Robin Morrow, More of a Club Than a Bookshop, Beecroft, Robin Morrow Books, 1999; Matthew Ricketson, Paul Jennings, Ringwood, Penguin, 2000; interviews with Kay Ronai, Julie Watts and Pat Adam.

Case-study:Translations and Overseas Editions KERRY WHITE At a conference in October 1989, illustrator Jane Tanner was happy to sign my copy of There’s a Sea in My Bedroom, her picture book with author Margaret Wild, but was astonished because it was a 1987 Japanese edition which she had never seen and, it seemed, didn’t know existed. Keeping creators informed of such deals is important now that overseas editions of Australian children’s books feature in trade publications and are highlighted in the media. It won’t have escaped Emily Rodda’s notice that her Deltora Quest series has sold over two million copies in Japan and 8 million copies worldwide. Such widespread attention to overseas sales of Australian children’s books is very recent, coinciding with the new millennium and closely tied to the heat generated by Harry Potter mania and the search for the ‘next big thing’. Nevertheless, since Ethel Turner’s Seven Little Australians appeared in Danish and Swedish editions only months after first publication in London in 1894, Australian children’s books have had a presence in the world market. It is a presence that is difficult to quantify. Overseas editions are recorded in bibliographies by myself, Marcie Muir and others, collected by the Lu Rees Archives in Canberra and other libraries, partially recorded by UNESCO in the Index Translationum, shelved in publishers’ archives, and kept by authors (if sent copies). Apart from these sources, the great bulk of our publishing overseas is unrecorded. Of course, well-known authors like John Marsden, Bob Graham or Melina Marchetta would be hard-pressed to keep count of all their translations. It is fascinating for a bibliographer to discover that at least two generations of Scandinavian children have grown up reading about the adventures of Australian brumbies, or that Ivan Southall novels, though

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now out of favour here, remain popular in Spain (Let the Balloon Go was in its twelfth Spanish edition in 1994) and have appeared in an extraordinary range of languages, including Albanian.The situation was not at all as exciting a few decades ago. Ethel Turner was certainly popular in Sweden and there are early Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German and Norwegian editions of her books, yet until the 1960s and 1970s international interest in other Australian children’s books was minimal. Only one foreign edition of a Mary Grant Bruce title is recorded in Muir (a 1923 Danish edition of A Little Bush Maid ), 1936 US and UK editions of The Magic Pudding, nothing of May Gibbs until the delightfully named Bib et Bub les Babygums in 1994, and a combined Japanese edition of the Bush Babies books in 1993. In the 1950s Mary Elwyn Patchett’s now almost forgotten Ajax books had Scandinavian, German, Polish and later Dutch, Afrikaans, US and even Japanese editions. Ivan Southall’s Simon Black series was published in Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish editions and Joan Phipson’s first book, Good Luck to the Rider, was published in Sweden in 1956. The 1960s and 1970s saw the first Finnish, French, German, Swedish and Spanish editions of Elyne Mitchell, as well as German, Danish and US editions of Ruth Park titles, including the Muddle-headed Wombat series, and the start of widespread international interest in Colin Thiele, Patricia Wrightson, Hesba Brinsmead, Ivan Southall and other well-known authors. In 1992 there was a Japanese edition of Wrightson’s Balyet, with a jacket illustration by Robert Ingpen. In these years overseas publication became commonplace for award-winning Australian authors. These varied examples make it impossible to say if Australian content is the key to overseas success. Certainly Swedish readers with their past enthusiasm for Ethel Turner, Elyne Mitchell and now John Marsden appear to favour books with Australian settings. Historically Australian content seems to have been an attraction (although why Bruce was not taken up by the same markets that favoured Turner, Mitchell and Patchett remains a mystery). Colin Thiele, whose subject is always some aspect of Australian life, is published everywhere. There have been two different full-text Chinese editions of Dot and the Kangaroo, both published in 2000, and a 1991 Chinese edition of Ruth Park’s children’s adventure novel The Road Under the Sea, which has not appeared in an English edition since 1963.

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It seems that the Spanish favour tough adventure titles with boy characters (Southall, Victor Kelleher), but the books translated into Spanish for Mexican publication are entirely different: Anna Fienberg’s gentle fantasies, Garry Hurle’s The Most Important Building in Town about a campaign to save a library (also in a Korean edition), and Sue Machin’s and Julie Vivas’s picture book for preschoolers, I Went Walking, for example. The Spanish also appear to love Robin Klein’s jaunty family humour, as do the Germans, reprinting Hating Alison Ashley for the third time in 1994. Germany has always been keen to take on translations of Australian books. Many Australian books have appeared in US editions and stories about language and cultural differences abound, often relating to American sensibilities. Nappies/diapers were drawn on naked toddlers in Alison Lester’s board books for babies, and inevitably there is meddling with the vernacular. The huge US market has, however, made stars of several Australian children’s writers (like Graeme Base, Garth Nix and Emily Rodda), with some choosing to publish there first (Mem Fox for example). In 2003 there were 240 000 copies in print of Andy Griffiths’ The Day My Bum [‘Butt’ in the US] Went Psycho. In the late 1970s and 1980s titles by Joan Phipson and Patricia Wrightson were published by Atheneum in beautiful editions under the Margaret K. McElderry imprint, with simultaneous, if less attractive, UK and Australian editions. Both authors maintained a US presence even as their popularity waned in Australia. In the main, overseas picture-book editions scarcely vary in design, but novels provide amazing contrasts. The cover illustration for the Russian edition of Gillian Rubinstein’s Skymaze might be interpreted by Australian readers as an intergalatic bodice-ripper. The design and illustration of French editions tend to make even serious books appear frivolous comedies. Conversely, hardcover overseas editions, in particular US and Japanese editions, add prestige to books more modestly produced in standard Australian paper bindings. It is possible to assemble from the National Library of Australia’s collection several different editions of Peter Carey’s children’s book The Big Bazoohley. The first, Australian edition has quirky illustrations by talented illustrator David Mackintosh. Oddly no other edition has used his illustrations, with the United Kingdom and

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the United States preferring the more painterly (and conservative) illustrations by Abira Ali. The German, Italian and French editions each have a different illustrator and the Spanish goes without. This diversity and the distinct design changes indicate that each publisher is keen to make the book its own. As for the term ‘Bazoohley’, it was bravely translated as many things, including ‘Bingobang’, ‘Gran Superslam’ and ‘Le Jackpot’. There is now a great variety of translations, including Afrikaans, Bahasa, Croatian, Estonian, Galician, Hebrew, Korean, Persian, Polish, Sesotho and Zulu. Blinky Bill can be found in French, German, Dutch, Latvian, Bahasa and Thai editions, while The Magic Pudding has been translated into Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, German and French. Although Thiele’s Storm-boy was translated into Thai as early as 1982, Asian publication is seen as the new frontier, and James Aldridge, Paul Jennings and John Winch can also now be read in Thai. There are well over a hundred Korean translations of Australian works, mostly picture books, and rising numbers of books for Malaysian readers. It is worth noting that some overseas publishers have received subsidies for translating Australian books. The recent unparalleled success of Rodda, Nix, Rubinstein and a number of other writers of fantasy titles with little discernible Australian content indicates a possible turning away from local content. Nearly all the titles noted here are trade books, but with Blinky Bill (the Yoram Gross animated version) and Bananas in Pyjamas licensed all over the world, a mass-market presence will perhaps be the most influential aspect of the reaching out of Australian children’s books to a wider readership. NOTE ON SOURCES Index Translationum, UNESCO, www.unesco.org/culture/xtrans; Kinetica Web, Canberra, NLA, www.nla.gov.au/kinetica; Marcie Muir, Australian Children’s Books 1774–1972: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 1992; Kerry White, Australian Children’s Books 1973–1988: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 1992; Kerry White, Australian Children’s Books 1989–2000: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 2004.

CHAPTER 11

Educational and Reference Publishing Gregory Blaxell and Don Drummond Publishing for schools 1946–1960s In the period after the Second World War, most secondary texts were imported from Britain to meet the needs of Australia’s secondary school market at a time when this sector was beginning to expand rapidly. Large educational booksellers began to emerge as both booksellers and publishers. The key booksellers in this trade included McLeod’s in Brisbane, Whitcombe & Tombs, Dominie and Angus & Robertson (A&R) in Sydney, FW Cheshire and Hall’s in Melbourne and Rigby in Adelaide. Responding to demand, they replaced imported texts with their own educational books. As outlined in Chapter 2, Brian Clouston at McLeod’s founded Jacaranda Press. Whitcombe & Tombs and A&R carried on successful educational bookselling and publishing businesses, as did Cheshire (with publisher Andrew Fabinyi), building a virtual monopoly in the supply of textbooks in Victoria. Hall’s Bookstore also began publishing textbooks specifically tailored for the Victorian market. Many of these textbooks were adaptations of teachers’ notes and worksheets devised for classroom use. Hall’s had its own printery which was upgraded with the addition of a second-hand press that could handle book printing. At this stage of educational publishing there was little or no editing. It is interesting to speculate as to why A&R did not make a greater input into educational publishing in this period, considering its reliance

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on educational publishing during the 1920s and 1930s. However, three reasons seem likely. First, its bookselling division was selling large quantities of educational titles, so its profitability as a bookseller was unaltered. Second, as outlined in Chapter 1, A&R was the pre-eminent general book publisher in Australia during this era, and its editorial effort went into literary and general book publishing. Finally, as owners of the largest and most professional book printery in Australia, Halstead Press, A&R profited by printing other publishers’ educational books. English publishing houses realised that they could not continue to satisfy the Australian market with textbooks produced for quite a different audience, and responded by seeking local authors. Educational publishing, particularly for secondary schools, began to flourish. In New South Wales and Queensland, William Brooks had already been publishing educational books for both primary and secondary markets. As printers they could maximise their printing capacity by publishing Australiangenerated texts. Yet, as it turned out, printers were less successful than educational booksellers turned publishers. In the case of A&R, owning all facets of book production and distribution probably held them back as educational publishers. In primary schools, there was not much call for educational texts, with the exception of some published by booksellers Whitcombe & Tombs, Dominie, Robertson & Mullens and Linehan & Shrimpton, as well as printer-publishers William Brooks and Shakespeare Head Press. Nor did most primary teachers see the need for student texts. They found that the reading and arithmetic textbooks supplied by some state education departments, along with the chalkboard and duplicated sheets, were sufficient. Diligent teachers often extracted student activities from published educational texts and these were either written on the board or handed out as duplicated sheets (often using the hand-cranked Gestetner machine with its waxy masters). Students having their own activity or resource books had very limited currency in the postwar period. Former teachers turned entrepreneurs, such as Owen Martin in New South Wales (who established Dominie) and Albert Pittock and Don Marks (from the primary supplier AR Pittock in Victoria), successfully published spirit duplicator masters as well as cheaply produced and inexpensive texts for this primary market. Some of the educational books

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published in the late 1950s and early 1960s were in English and Mathematics. With the slow phasing out of History and Geography, Social Studies became the curriculum norm and textbooks were successfully produced in this curriculum area, especially by William Brooks. The teaching of reading in Australia is an interesting story in itself. Soon after the Second World War, Oliver & Boyd published their most successful reading program, Happy Venture, with Professor Fred Schonell leading the writing team. Professor Schonell had established an international reputation as an authority on reading and was appointed to the Chair of Education at the University of Queensland in the 1950s. His educational materials soon took hold, especially in Queensland but also in most other Australian states. Queensland was the first state to introduce a reading program into the curriculum and only slowly did the other states follow. In New South Wales the Education Department published materials at the beginner level, with a pre-reading student activity book and a series of early readers used throughout the three years of infant schooling. This was followed by the School Magazine (given free to all primary students) – almost the sole resource for the teaching of reading. The concept of a reading program for the whole of primary was unknown in New South Wales until the publication of the Endeavour Language Program in 1967. In Victoria, too, the Education Department published new editions of the Victorian Readers – first published in 1928 – which were supplied to schools at no cost. The School Paper (published monthly for each grade and sold to pupils through newsagents at a token price) was a major resource for teachers. The Victorian department also published arithmetic texts for grades 3–6.

1960s and 1970s Prior to the 1960s, educational publishing was carried out by personnel with bookselling experience. However, in the 1960s publishers began to employ trained teachers to oversee their evolving educational programs. This change was not so evident in the secondary area where the tradition of booksellers contracting teachers to write texts was already well established. Often these teachers were connected with the development of a particular curriculum. Brian Clouston explained it this way:

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‘You ask around until you find out who are the “gun teachers” and you approach them to write the textbook. It helps if they are on the syllabus committee!’ This method of manuscript acquisition was used by most educational publishers and is still the most widely used methodology. The title ‘Acquisitions Editor’ is now used to describe this function. Jacaranda Press, for example, became very adept at this, commissioning Fred Barrell’s Junior Physics and Junior Chemistry for Years 8–10 and Senior Physics and Senior Chemistry for Years 11–12, which became the ‘set’ science texts for Queensland schools. Few copies of the books sold outside the state because they were so specific to the Queensland syllabus. Professor Andrew Thomson, of the University of Queensland’s English Department, compiled the bestselling verse anthologies Living Verse and Off the Shelf, which sold extremely well in Queensland but also throughout Australia because of the quality of the selection. Dr Rex Meyer and Nell Buckingham wrote the bestselling senior biology text Introduction to Biology for New South Wales schools. This also sold well in other states, although the primary market was always New South Wales. All these authors had considerable curriculum input and were generally regarded as the ‘gun authors’ in their disciplines. For secondary schools, different states had different ways of using texts. NSW schools, for example, used a bookroom procedure where the school purchased the books and hired them out to fee-paying students, with the selection of texts depending on choices made by individual schools. In other states there were department-selected ‘set texts’ purchased by the students. Most independent schools followed this practice. Today there are no ‘set texts’ but a number of books that meet the needs of a particular school and reflect the general thrust of the syllabus. During the 1960s there were other forces at work. In New South Wales the junior secondary science market was dominated by a publication edited by Professor Harry Messell of Sydney University and published by his ‘Nuclear Research Foundation’. The Messell team, through the Nuclear Research Foundation, also published a series of senior science books, but these were far less successful than the junior ‘Messell Bible’ which virtually wiped out the competition in New South Wales. However, it sold poorly in other states and was eventually superseded. In

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Victoria the Junior Secondary Science Program (JSSP) was developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) but was commercially published by Cheshire. Perhaps the most pervasive such program was the Web of Life, published by the Academy of Science in Canberra. It was an Australian version of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) project that had been developed by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was generally felt that there had to be more professional educators involved in educational publishing. Typical of this new breed were John Curtain at Cheshire, Bill Mackerell at Methuen, Gregory Blaxell at Jacaranda and Rod Mead at Prentice Hall. Sometimes there was tension between the traditional bookseller/publishers and these new teacher/ publishers. In reality, neither could survive without the other, given the changing scope and complexity of educational publishing. Overseas publishers began to realise that their export market in Australia was being eroded. To combat this, their Australian distribution offices now became publishing units, bringing a more sophisticated approach to educational publishing.

Reading programs and atlases At the primary level there was a need to develop programs rather than single texts, with educational input from the publisher working alongside a team of professionally qualified authors and consultants. Such large and expensive programs required an Australia-wide market and this was available in the primary school area. Typical of this development was the Endeavour Language Program. Endeavour brought together academics in linguistics/language development (Professor Frank Johnson) and pedagogy/child development (Professor Ted Scott) and a curriculum specialist from the Queensland Department of Education, George Berkeley (later the state’s Director General of Education). This trio wrote the material within a preconceived conceptual framework which contained significant advances in the linguistic and child development areas. Former teachers Gregory Blaxell (a Jacaranda Press editor) and later John Curtain (an editor at Cheshire) were also on the editorial board of Endeavour and participated in the development of the program. Long-time teacher and

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award-winning novelist Thea Astley contributed some input, while Jacaranda supplied not only educational expertise but also editorial, design, production and marketing facilities. Endeavour was the first in a long line of reading programs. It took some time to penetrate a market dominated by Happy Venture or to infiltrate those states which did not use a comprehensive reading program. The delay caused an immediate cash-flow problem for Jacaranda as editorial and production costs mounted and only modest income returns began to trickle in. These factors, and the reality that Jacaranda and Cheshire were now owned by the large Melbourne printer Wilke, ultimately forced Jacaranda to take on Cheshire as a publishing partner in the Endeavour Language Program. However, once the program had developed its roots, it took off to become one of the great Australian publishing success stories. In the period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s Jacaranda Press was the leading publisher of educational programs, including the successful Jacaranda Atlas Project.To produce its atlas, Jacaranda employed a staff of cartographers and set up an editorial committee of academic geographers drawn from all Australian states. John Collins, who eventually took over as CEO of Jacaranda Press, was first engaged as part of this editorial team. At the time he was a senior lecturer in education at the University of Melbourne. Angus & Robertson already had a series of atlases under the Robinson imprint, and there were other Australian atlases compiled by JG Bartholemew and published by Oxford. But none of these met the needs of new geography syllabuses being developed throughout Australia. The decision to embark on the ambitious Jacaranda Atlas was primarily a commercial one. As well as a secondary atlas, Jacaranda produced a series of primary school atlases, in editions which focused on each state – a very effective innovation. There was also an export spin-off, with atlases produced for New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, as well as several unsuccessful attempts to produce for the developing Asian market. Jacaranda already had a very successful export market in Papua New Guinea with the Minenda Readers, developed by local residents Frank and Lois Johnson. It was Frank Johnson’s association with Jacaranda through Minenda that led to his joining the Endeavour team. Although Minenda was a complex program, it was creatively the work of the Johnsons and

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thus falls into the category of commissioned works for a specific and clearly defined market. The development of Minenda into an English as a Second Language (ESL) program called Jilap was a far greater commitment by Jacaranda. Jilap was aimed at the US market, but although an enormous amount of time, money and intellectual effort went into the program, it was never a success, underlining the risks that publishers take with such large and expensive programs. Minenda was typical of Brian Clouston’s approach to educational publishing and was also the first Australian program printed in Hong Kong, followed by Endeavour and many others. Asian printers had access to paper stocks from all around the world and were able to buy paper at much more competitive prices. At one time, Australian publishers could buy paper manufactured at Burnie in Tasmania cheaper in Asia than in Australia.

1980–2001 With increased spending on educational materials in the 1970s, Australia was now seen as an attractive commercial opportunity and a number of publishing houses changed ownership. IPC took over Jacaranda Press and FW Cheshire, and was itself taken over by Reed which already owned Rigby/Heinemann in Australia. Eventually Reed sold both Jacaranda (to Wiley) and Cheshire (to Xerox). By the end of the 1970s Longman (UK) had acquired Cheshire, and Jacaranda was getting used to its new owner, US college publisher John Wiley, as John Collins describes in his case-study. Macmillan, Heinemann, Nelson (all UK), McGraw-Hill and Prentice Hall (US) had established a major presence in Australian secondary publishing. These companies have now consolidated their position as the major players in educational publishing. This period also saw the emergence of Ashton (later Ashton Scholastic; see Chapter 10) into the educational market with book clubs at different school levels and then magazines for teachers and children. Increased funding to schools also generated entrepreneurial optimism and the consequent growth of niche publishers such as Primary Education and L&S Educational Supplies. Primary Education magazine was founded by Don and Sheila Drummond and from this base the company expanded to publish other magazines and teacher reference titles

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(sometimes in conjunction with other publishers such as Nelson and Heinemann) over a period of twenty years. In order to survive, Primary Education made strategic alliances with other publishers and was eventually purchased by another independent, Dove Communications. Dove had grasped the opportunities in Catholic education in the wake of Vatican II to publish primary and secondary religious studies programs, before being acquired by Collins. Under-capitalisation, the limited size of the Australian market and problems of distribution have always made it difficult for small independent educational publishers to survive, but entrepreneurial publishers (often established by teachers or former employees of larger publishing houses) have continued to develop. Many, like Of Primary Importance in Mildura, are regionally based but publish for a national market. Multinationals like Heinemann, Macmillan, Longman, Nelson and Oxford expanded their local publishing, while US publishers – particularly McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, John Wiley & Sons and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ) – also became actively involved in local publishing, with HBJ developing successful primary mathematics, language and social studies programs. Don Drummond was appointed publishing manager at HBJ and later became publishing manager at Horwitz Martin Education. HBJ published the first comprehensive, multi-material primary mathematics program (HBJ Maths), based on the NSW syllabus. Sheila Drummond worked at Dove Communications, Angus & Robertson and Hale & Iremonger before establishing her own successful literary agency. Most major publishers developed or adapted their own language programs. Cheshire had published the successful Trend series for the junior secondary level and Nelson published a completely Australian edition of Young Australia. Rigby published Reading Rigby (written by Gregory Blaxell and Gordon Winch and packaged by Lloyd O’Neil). The influence of New Zealander Marie Clay on the content and structure of language programs and the development of ‘Reading Recovery’ approaches were features of the period. Some of the more successful publishers in this market have been Nelson, Reed International, Horwitz Martin with Alphakids, and the Go series published by Blake Education, part of Pascal Press.

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By the end of the 1990s, educational publishing was almost exclusively in the hands of overseas owners, though independents continue to be active, including packagers developing programs for export. Sue Donovan and John Gilder’s Mimosa Publications is a prime example of a successful company in this field, publishing primary mathematics, reading, science, all levels of English Language Teaching (ELT) and multimedia materials. Other professional packagers such as Black Dog and Eleanor Curtain continue to develop programs in conjunction with major publishers. Some of these programs (like Eleanor Curtain’s Alphakids) have been successfully exported to Britain and the United States. Professionally designed and written texts, supplemented by CDROMs, with web-based support materials, have become the hallmarks of educational publishing at the beginning of the new millennium. Growth in the use of computers and the Internet has given unparalleled access to information, and publishers have responded by using electronic delivery of learning materials. In a highly competitive environment, publishers have looked to gain an edge by paying increased attention to design and illustration. As the industry grows, both commercially and professionally, publishers will continue to initiate projects, identify market needs and bring together teams of curriculum designers, consultants and practising teachers. The case-studies in this chapter cover other aspects of educational, scholarly and reference publishing. NOTE ON SOURCES Michael Fullen, The Meaning of Educational Change, Toronto, OISE, 1982; G. W. Winch et al., Literacy – Reading, Writing and Children’s Literature, Melbourne, OUP, 2001, p. 108; Martyn Lyons and John Arnold (eds), A History of the Book in Australia 1891–1945, St Lucia, UQP, 2001, pp. 294–97.

Case-study: Curriculum Materials GREGORY BLAXELL AND DON DRUMMOND Curricula developed by Australian states and territories generally do not provide the teaching materials themselves.These are produced by educational publishers in response to the curriculum statements. From the late

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1980s to the mid-1990s, education departments and schools themselves set the curricula. Such school-based curriculum development, however, often resulted in greater reliance on commercially generated educational texts. There have been attempts by the Commonwealth to influence state curricula but these have usually been resisted by the states. In Australia, this lack of uniformity has often been a problem for educational publishers, because the national population is comparatively small. Publishing exclusively for the more populous states (Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland) is an easier proposition than publishing for a small state or territory. As a result, the smaller states are sometimes forced to accept material specifically produced for one of the larger states. The curriculum area also tends to determine the portability of material. For example, English is more portable than Social Studies, where local data will inevitably be emphasised. It is often left to the educational publisher to analyse overlaps and develop products that meet the needs of more than one state. Publishers, though, have remained extremely wary about such publishing ventures, except in the curriculum area of primary English. The model often used in other subject areas is to have a core of content applicable to all states, adding curriculum-specific material as required. Since the 1960s educational publishing has used the technology of photocopiable blackline masters.These cheap resources have been developed locally by teachers or by educational publishers. The development of these educational materials has been enhanced by the advent of CAL (Copyright Agency Limited) which oversees the use of photocopiable material in schools and the distribution of the resulting revenue to authors and publishers. Each state and territory jealously guards its right to develop curricula for its own region and this lack of portability is more pronounced in secondary publishing than in primary publishing. However, over the last twenty years the Commonwealth has published statements of curriculum outcomes, most notably in literacy and numeracy. Basic skills tests are given annually in New South Wales and South Australia to Years 3, 5 and 7, and National Benchmarks are established. Students are evaluated by comparison with these benchmarks. Beginning in 1999, schools and school systems were required to report to the federal government about

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the achievement of their students in relation to nationally agreed benchmarks in literacy. These outcomes have been embedded into the basic skills testing program that is now a feature of primary and junior secondary schools throughout Australia. It has also led to many commercially developed materials incorporating an evaluation component. Another influence that has brought the once widely divergent state curricula into a more homogeneous union has been the contribution of Australia-wide professional organisations such as the Australian Reading Association (now ALEA, the Australian Language Education Association) to further the development of curricula.The Australian Reading Association, for example, was instrumental in bringing Kenneth and Yetta Goodman to Australia in the 1970s. Kenneth Goodman’s psycho-linguistic approach to reading was very influential in changing the way reading was taught throughout Australia. Similarly, the Primary English Teachers’ Association (PETA) was virtually responsible for implementing the new 1968 English Syllabus in NSW primary schools.Through its publishing program, PETA has influenced many new developments in the teaching of English, including books on text analysis and functional grammar. There are many examples from other subject areas, notably the Victorian Commercial Teachers’ Association (VCTA) which developed, produced and marketed secondary textbooks that dominated the state market in the disciplines of Commerce, Economics and Business Studies. The VCTA’s publishing program was especially vigorous under the direction of Bob Andersen and the involvement of Neil Conning.VCTA publishing was acquired by Macmillan in the 1990s. The Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria (GTAV) was also an active publisher. In conjunction with Heinemann Education, the association published a geography project which became the market leader for geography texts in Victoria. Jim Warburton, then of Heinemann Education, involved the company in other joint projects of this kind. The History Teachers Association of Victoria (HTAV) was also an active publisher of textbooks, including some joint projects with commercial publishers.

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Case-study: US Educational Publishers JOHN COLLINS In the English tradition, publishers have always been jealous and possessive of their statistics (certainly profits, if not sales) and the story of the rise of Jacaranda Press has been described in an earlier chapter. By the late 1960s, Australian ownership had been lost. A succession of British companies from IPC to Reed International had moved in and local schools publishers, like Jacaranda and Cheshire, while surviving, were finding their new masters far from cooperative. Educational publishing is a very different animal from trade or general publishing. Its authors – teachers and lecturers for the most part – are the gatekeepers. They do the adopting and prescribing. Market numbers are dependent on the fads and fashions of curriculum change, teaching practice and government funding but are also relatively easy to assess. By the 1980s the major influence on educational fashion (as on many other areas) was the United States rather than the United Kingdom. US college and university numbers had increased dramatically and the new-style texts, often elaborate and supposedly teacher-proof, were geared uncompromisingly to the expanding US domestic market. The US industry, however, saw great opportunities for export to comparatively affluent markets like Canada and Australia. Ed Hamilton, president of Wiley, led a team of publishers to Sydney as early as 1945 to assess the situation. During the 1960s, US college publishers McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall,Wiley and Addison-Wesley began to set up shop with their armoury of new ‘product’. First they distributed via agents.Within a year or two they had done the American thing and established subsidiary companies. Their preferred base was Sydney; Melbourne remained the preserve of British companies. Denis Hinton led McGraw, Pat Gleeson ran Prentice Hall and Paul Searle ran Wiley. While concentrating on the distribution of US titles, these new companies entered local publishing via adaptations of US texts (particularly for the larger first-year classes) and were singularly successful at capturing a large segment of the rapidly expanding tertiary market where portability was possible and the system was ripe for change. Wiley, from its new building in North Ryde, used a similar strategy, but in addition it tried to enter the local school

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market. In this respect, Wiley followed McGraw who had earlier beaten Jacaranda in the race to acquire the Angus & Robertson education list following Gordon Barton’s takeover. The chairman of Wiley, internationalist W. Bradford Wiley, who had led the charge into foreign fields, was soon apprised of the need to gain Australian market share. Acquisition was the only route to follow. Beaten to the punch by Longman in an attempt to acquire Cheshire, he sought out Jacaranda which, to the surprise of its then English owners, had become seriously profitable for a change following the Brisbane flood of January 1974. In August 1976 Wiley bought Jacaranda Press for a little over a million American dollars and renamed it Jacaranda Wiley. Jacaranda was a very nonconformist element in the Wiley Empire, primarily because it was the only segment whose major sales were derived from the school or ‘el-hi’ market. Wiley New York had itself once tried an el-hi maths program and failed, a failure that may have influenced the owner’s subsequent attitude towards this strange Australian acquisition. In an internal memo to the Wiley Board on 7 December 1978, Charles Stoll, the then vice-president of Wiley International, outlined the strategy: The first purpose of the acquisition was to strengthen our position in the Australian Education market . . . to acquire a publisher already established in the school market and merge it with our successful but marginally profitable [Australian] college trading business . . . The alternative was to reconsider and probably retrench our operations in Australia. The second and longer range purpose of this acquisition was to establish a publishing base for development in the Pacific Basin/Southeast Asia Region.

So began a decade of expansion for Jacaranda Wiley, complicated by the immediate need to cope with a massive stock transfer from Sydney to Brisbane, plus the assimilation of new sales and support staff with their aggressive new marketing techniques from across the Pacific. Effective computerisation and new warehousing were achieved but in the first years the results were well down on forecast. If it hadn’t been for the warm, understanding relationship established with the Wiley chairman and his supporting officers in New York, the experiment may have ground to a halt. However, unlike the past English owners, the House of

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Wiley (with its chairman and his wife acting as ambassadors extraordinaire) made sure that the acquisition took hold and began to work. In the early 1980s Australia was flavour of the month in the United States and when the America’s Cup crossed the Pacific it gave Jacaranda Wiley much needed breathing space. As it happened, those same years saw the Wiley New York company profitable and celebrating its 175th anniversary, so Jacaranda survived. From the outset, Jacaranda Wiley had been given complete publishing freedom, unlike its competitors. These now included Harcourt Brace, Harper and Row, Addison-Wesley and Houghton Mifflin, all of whom were subject to the strict rules of the US decision-makers. During this period, Wiley president Andrew Neilly and vice-president Charles Stoll used their good offices to assist Jacaranda in its request for dictionary publishing rights from Random House. Without those rights the Macquarie Dictionary would have been still-born and Jacaranda’s publication of the Pocket Macquarie and a wide range of other schools dictionaries would not have been possible. With very successful dictionary sales and with continued national acceptance of Jacaranda atlases, a wide range of texts and readers and the first computer software for schools, as well as a healthy injection of college texts and professional titles, Jacaranda’s sales and profits in the second half of the 1980s increased. As luck would have it, this buoyancy was once again counter-cyclical, for the New York company was in the doldrums, caused partly by the acquisition of Wilson Learning, a mid-western training company with a very different ethos. A new management group got itself into place by the end of the decade and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. not only survived but also prospered. The second objective of the Jacaranda acquisition had been Wiley’s planned expansion into South-East Asia.With management in New York in a state of disarray, Australia was given responsibility for Wiley distribution in Singapore and in India via a joint venture company, Wiley Eastern. In collaboration with staff in India, Singapore and New York, Australia managed to establish a program based in Singapore for the distribution of all Wiley International editions. In 1989 Jacaranda Wiley acquired local schools publisher Brooks Waterloo and by the end of the decade was certainly one of the major

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suppliers of college texts and professional reference titles from Wiley and other US publishers like Scott Foresman, South Western, Norton and the Canadian publisher Gage. It had also published a variety of general titles, including Michael Somare’s Sana, Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poetry, Jim Dunn’s Timor – A People Betrayed, Nancy Cato’s Noosa Story, Helen Caldicott’s Nuclear Madness and gardening volumes by Harry Oakman. However, the only local author who had his manuscript published by Wiley New York was David Hopley, who hit the jackpot with The Geomorphology of the Great Barrier Reef. So much for taking Australian authors to a wider world! The 1980s was a period of great technical change in book production and communication generally. The deregulation of the Australian dollar and other currency fluctuations coincided with a period of great instability for publishers – local and foreign owned. All these factors placed considerable pressure on traditional law (in particular, the 1968 Copyright Act) which had been used by both English and American interests as a vehicle for maintaining a closed market on imports. Numerous book price enquiries followed and arguments about discounts became noisier. The British publishers found themselves losing their long-established ‘empire markets’ and many became the target of foreign takeovers. As early as 1980, Clive Bradley, chief executive of the British Publishers Association, had protested: ‘Not only has the US invaded the market in Canada. It has also started to provide Australia with books.’ US interests and influence were now firmly established in Australia. As the roller-coasting 1980s came to an end, the next decade ushered in a further consolidation of US power. Internationalism was out and globalism or centralism was in. Australia, like many another small nations, seemed only too happy to continue its dependence on the importation of knowledge, particularly at the influential post-secondary level.

Case-study: University Presses FRANK THOMPSON Universities by their very nature are involved in publishing. From exam papers through faculty handbooks and calendars to academic papers and books, they have since their beginnings been reliant on the written word.

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Australian universities have been no exception. Their activities were confined essentially, however, to producing printed material for a small audience of their own students and a handful of academics in other institutions. There were no university presses as such in nineteenth-century Australia. Instead, the four universities which then existed had to rely on local printers for student materials. Since the academic focus was on the classics, theology and European subjects, their research and book needs were largely satisfied with imports from England. The first university press in Australia was an English publisher. Oxford University Press opened an office in Melbourne in 1908, though this was strictly a sales office. A few years later it did begin to procure local manuscripts, but actual book production, including most editing and design, was done in England until the 1930s. Although by the end of the First World War the demand for Australian academic material had begun to be noticeable, this was not the catalyst for the formation of Australia’s first and oldest university press. Melbourne University Press (MUP) officially began in 1922 primarily as a shop for the sale of student requisites, chiefly second-hand texts and stationery. Its sole employee was a clerk who divided his time between the bookroom and the registrar’s office. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first head of the press was Stanley S. Addison, the assistant registrar. In spite of its bookshop orientation, MUP envisaged the publication of books from the very beginning and its first title was published in 1923: A History of the White Australia Policy until 1920 by Myra Willard, published at the author’s expense. Book publishing became Addison’s major interest and by the time of his departure in 1931 the Press had published some sixty titles and was well established. Melbourne University Press has had a long and distinguished history and is, in fact, Australia’s second oldest publishing house. Under a succession of eminent directors, including respected Australian poet Frank Wilmot and the writer and critic Peter Ryan, it has made a huge contribution to Australian history and biography. Perhaps its best known publication is Manning Clark’s seminal history of Australia, the first volume of which was published in 1961 under the directorship of Gwyn James (MUP manager, 1943–62). Indeed, a list of the Australian historians who have published works under the MUP banner is a rollcall of the nation’s historical scholarship, including Geoffrey Blainey, Brian

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Fitzpatrick, Douglas Pike and Geoffrey Serle. Serle’s name also heads the list of distinguished MUP biographers, along with Alan Martin, Brenda Niall and John Ritchie, among many others. MUP continues to publish important books in the humanities, particularly through its Miegunyah Press imprint, supported by a generous bequest from the Grimwade family. Sir Russell Grimwade was a passionate collector of early Australian books and paintings. He and Lady Grimwade lived at ‘Miegunyah’ in Toorak from 1911 to 1955. Now part of the broader commercial entity Melbourne University Publishing, MUP is managed by Louise Adler whose background includes lecturing and journalism as well as publishing. She was publisher at Reed and has also edited Australian Book Review. In 2005 MUP published the controversial Latham Diaries. The MUP initiative of combining publishing with bookshop activities was one of its most important contributions to university press publishing in Australia. Publishing is a very capital-intensive activity. Printers expect to be paid on delivery of the finished product, and editors and designers too have to be paid, which means that the majority of costs are met well before any sales occur. Academic books in particular sell over many years and seldom recover their costs under two or three years at best. The Melbourne model ensured that the Press achieved its initial cash flow through the activities of its campus bookroom. Significantly, Australia’s strongest university presses – MUP, UQP and UNSWP – all have bookshops. Australia’s second oldest university press, and its largest, did not begin until 1948 when it was officially gazetted, although the University of Queensland had been actively publishing since 1922.The statute creating UQP was modelled on the Melbourne example and stated that not only would the Press be a department within the university but its accounts would be kept separate and part of its primary function was to buy and sell books. It is indicative of UQP’s strength that in over fifty years of existence it had only three managers. The first was Athol Perkins, a distinguished entomologist, who ran the Press and Bookshop as well as the Department of Entomology. Not surprisingly, during his thirteen-year tenure scientific titles comprised three-quarters of UQP’s output, and the Press’s reputation was largely confined to its home state, its university and the scientific community.

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I was appointed manager in 1961. Although comparatively young, I had had extensive training and experience in academic and commercial publishing in both Australia and the United States.With my background, I tended to see the role of university presses as transcending the narrow confines of academe, and I decided that UQP’s philosophy should be to publish books of general cultural and scholarly interest, which included poetry, drama and serious fiction. At the beginning of the 1960s these subjects were poorly served by Australian publishers, and, as a result, UQP later developed a strong list in those areas and a reputation for imaginative publishing. Scholarly publishing was not neglected, however, although the Press did not confine itself to any particular area but published across a broad academic spectrum. (See my Chapter 3 case-study on UQP in the 1970s.) I left UQP in 1983 to become head of Rigby Publishers in Adelaide, and was succeeded at UQP by Laurie Muller, who not only retained much of the publishing policy of the 1960s and 1970s but further developed it. He retired in 2003 and Greg Bain become general manager. In the 1980s and 1990s UQP became an important publisher of Aboriginal writing, establishing in 1989 the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous writers, now Australia’s premier literary award in this area. Geographically, the University of Western Australia Press (UWAP) is the most remote Australian university press and this has done much to shape its publishing profile. Officially beginning in 1954, it has specialised in titles of regional interest, although not exclusively. In the 1990s, for example, under Ian Drakeford’s directorship, it began successfully publishing children’s books. Distribution and marketing have always been expensive for Australian publishers because of the large distances between major population centres. For UWAP the problem is even greater, because not only is Western Australia separated from the rest of Australia by a vast desert but the state itself is huge. For this reason UWAP has had a struggle to survive.To its credit, it has not only become a valued contributor to the culture of its area through its regional publishing but has also achieved an enviable reputation in the fields of natural history, biography, history and critical studies. Unfortunately, UWAP’s early association with the university bookshop was severed in the 1950s which meant that it has had to depend on sales revenue and on university subsidies. Its first publication, How

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To Know Western Australian Wildflowers, was extremely successful and remains in print today, but financial constraints meant that most publishing activities (including editing, design and marketing) were outsourced to FW Cheshire in Melbourne. This arrangement ended in 1964 with the appointment of John O’Brien as the first full-time head of the Press. He developed in-house editing and design capabilities and ensured that the press was self-sufficient and its list less parochial. Unlike MUP and UQP, UWAP had a printing establishment attached to it. Too small for book production, it was mainly active in job printing for the university as well as the outside community.This may account for the appointment of Vic Greaves, a printer, as director following O’Brien’s departure in 1989. Under its current director, Dr Jenny Gregory, the Press is producing an impressive range of titles. Although a respected academic historian, Dr Gregory has taken a keen interest in marketing, and by her judicious blend of titles is ensuring that UWAP will become a more attractive general publisher as well as a prestigious academic publisher. In an unusual twist, the origins of New South Wales University Press not only predate the university itself but were initiated as a student venture at the Sydney Technical College. Its primary purpose at that time was to overcome a severe textbook shortage following the close of the Second World War. As a result, in its early days it filled the role not only of publisher but of printer and bookseller as well. The facilities were all owned by the Students’ Union of the College. The University of New South Wales was created by the amalgamation of Sydney Technical College and the New South Wales Institute of Technology. The proposal for a University of New South Wales Press (UNSWP) was put forward in 1961 and it was incorporated at the end of that year. Thus, although UNSWP did not officially exist as a university press until 1962, it arrived on the scene with an already profitable backlist, a developed publishing program, a printing operation and a bookshop. In spite of these impressive beginnings, and its incorporated status as a separate body, the Press remained primarily a supplier of the university’s needs and it was largely unknown beyond its own campus. By 1973 printing technologies were becoming more sophisticated and more expensive to maintain and the press closed down that part of its activities. With the appointment of Doug Howie as general manager in 1974,

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UNSWP entered the broader publishing world, and during his twenty years at the helm achieved a notable presence on the Australian university press scene, becoming a significant scientific publisher as well as an important contributor to Australian historical studies. It also developed a strong backlist in the areas of urban studies, business and communications, and technical books. Doug Howie retired in 1994, and in 1997 Dr Robin Derricourt became managing director following a distinguished career at Cambridge University Press in both England and Australia, using his marketing experience to develop Unireps for UNSWP and for other similar publishers. In 2001 there was only one other university press of national importance: the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, publishing as RMIT Publishing. It began in 1990 as a university-owned private company, similar to UNSWP. RMIT Publishing is primarily an electronic publisher and through its imprint Informit publishes material on CD-ROM and on-line. Bibliographies, databases in Australian disciplines such as literature, law, heritage and the environment, and family resources are some of the areas RMIT Publishing is interested in. It also has a small number of print titles in the technical education area. The press does all its design, editing, sales and marketing in-house, and the full-time staff even compose and play original music to accompany their promotional CD-ROMS. As well as the five presses described above, there are some smaller university presses, such as Central Queensland University Press and Southern Cross University Press. No account of Australian university presses, however, would be complete without mentioning three other presses which failed to make it into the new millennium. Sydney University Press (SUP) was established in 1964 with funds provided from the Eleanor Sophia Wood bequest. Its first manager was Hugh Price, a New Zealand publisher who had founded the publishing house Price Milburn which published titles for Victoria University and the State Library Fund of New Zealand. Price was an astute and competent publisher, but his unfamiliarity with the Australian book scene made his appointment a puzzling one. Malcolm Titt, who had been SUP’s editor, became its director in 1968 following Price’s return to New Zealand. Titt had an extensive publishing background in both England and Australia and was able to take

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the Press into more market-friendly areas without sacrificing academic rigour. Unfortunately, its access to funds from the Wood Bequest diminished and the university began moving these funds to more pressing areas, leading to a gradual decline in staffing and in the number of titles published.To the sorrow of many in the publishing industry,Titt eventually decided that dairy farming was more attractive than trying to publish without funds, and he left in 1979. David New, an eminent Australian book designer and production manager, succeeded Titt. By this stage, however, there was only a handful of staff left and even less money to publish new titles. In 1987 Australia’s oldest university sold its press to Oxford University Press and moved out of the publishing business. In 1965, one of the newer universities – the Australian National University in Canberra – had decided to establish a press. For some inexplicable reason it commissioned Marsh Jeanneret of Toronto University Press to come to Australia and prepare a report on how the press should be constituted. As a Canadian, Jeanneret’s knowledge of the Australian market and publishing scene was somewhat limited. However, his report contained some excellent advice on how university presses should operate. For example, he suggested that the list be broken into two parts – academic and more commercial publishing – and that the university should control and finance the academic side but allow the press director a free hand with the commercial part of the list. The first half of this suggestion appealed to the university but not the second half. Nevertheless, Jeanneret was again consulted when it came time to appoint the first director of ANUP, recommending W. A. (Chip) Wood who had been sales manager for Chicago University Press. Urbane and highly intelligent, Wood was a former bookseller with a good publishing knowledge. Under his directorship ANUP published some excellent academic titles, particularly in the area of Pacific Studies, and developed an enviable record of quality publishing. Perhaps not as adventurous as UQP or MUP, the Press was nevertheless a great credit to its university. Unfortunately, the university, while maintaining tight control of ANUP’s publishing decisions through its publications committee, was also surprised at the Press’s lack of profitability. In 1975 the university did not renew Wood’s contract and he returned to the United States. In his place they appointed Brian Clouston, the founder of Jacaranda Press

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(see Chapter 2) and one of Australia’s great publishers, with the mission to make ANUP profitable. But even this publishing legend could not turn it around in time and he left in 1980 to establish the highly successful Canberra-based bookselling venture Academic Remainders. In 1984 Australia’s national university sold its press to Pergamon, only to see the ANU imprint disappear altogether following the Robert Maxwell debacle. Deakin University Press was established in 1979, primarily to provide textbooks for its external students. Many of its titles proved attractive to a wider public and for some years it was a minor but respected institution in Australian academic publishing. It was wound up in 2000. Book publishing in Australia has always faced the problems of a small population base, competition from cheaper imports, and vast distances between population centres. These problems are even more severe for university presses. Because distribution costs are high, mainstream distributors are reluctant to handle expensive scholarly titles with such small markets. Similarly, overseas importers are disinclined to market these titles. In recent years the demand for scholarly works has sharply contracted worldwide as more academics focus on smaller niches within their disciplines. The growth of the Internet has also diminished the role of traditional reference works. Australia’s surviving university presses have fought these problems in similar ways, confining their publishing to Australian topics principally in the humanities and natural sciences – areas in which imports cannot compete. They have broadened their lists to include non-academic books, and have focused their attention on the subtleties of the Australian marketplace. The contributions of MUP and UQP to Australian culture are considerable. Australia would be a poorer place without the great histories and biographical studies published by MUP over many years. UQP almost single-handedly led the revival of interest in Australian poetry in the late 1960s and was instrumental in breathing new life into fiction in the 1970s. Both presses continue to be major players in the general cultural life of the community. UWAP remains an essential regional voice as well as an innovative contributor to mainstream publishing, while UNSW Press is growing in strength as an academic publisher, and RMIT Publishing is now the sector’s leading electronic publisher.

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NOTE ON SOURCES Catalogues and annual reports from current university presses; interviews with Laurie Muller and Craig Munro of UQP, Robin Derricourt of UNSWP and Jenny Gregory of UWAP; Fred Alexander, Campus at Crawley: A Narrative and Critical Appreciation of the First Fifty Years of the University, FW Cheshire, Melbourne, 1963, pp. 698–99; S. G. Foster and Margaret M. Varghese, ‘The Publishing Imperative’, in The Making of the Australian University, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, pp. 266–69; Rama Gaind, ‘“Cannot imagine” life without a book’, Canberra Times, 22 July 1979; Marsh Jeanneret, ‘Scholarly Publishing at ANU’, 1965 Report, ANU, Canberra; John Mulvaney and Colin Steele (eds), Changes in Scholarly Communication Patterns, Australian Academy of the Humanities Occasional Paper, no. 15, 1993; Peter Ryan, ‘Publishing Papers’, 1 and 4, MUP Papers, 1977–78; Leigh Scott, ‘The Early History of MUP’, MUP papers, 1961; Frank Thompson, ‘Scholarly Publishing in Australia’, paper delivered at the inaugural meeting of the International Scholarly Publishing Association, Toronto, September 1972; William West, ‘Falling Revenue Forces Sale of Sydney University Press’, Australian Higher Education Supplement, 8 April 1987, pp. 11–14. See also Criena Fitzgerald, A Press in Isolation: University of WA Press 1935–2004, UWAP, 2005.

Case-study: Dictionaries and Style Guides SUSAN BUTLER There have been two strands in the documentation of Australian English: the academic and the popular. The starting point for academic research was E. E. Morris’s Austral English (1898) which set out to be a supplement to James Murray’s New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (now universally known as the Oxford English Dictionary, 1933). Morris’s account of Australian English was essentially one of selected Australianisms, but his work set a high standard and laid the foundation for later scholarly work. The popular starting point came earlier, with the convict James Hardy Vaux who attempted to explain the prisoners’ language to their jailers and judges, or so he said. His motives are not clear, but his Memoirs, a colourful account of life in the colonies published in London in 1819, contained a glossary of the language convicts brought with them to Botany Bay. Many of these terms have kept a place in Australian (and American) slang. There have been a number of popular accounts, of varying scope and quality, which tend to lump together Australianisms, colloquialisms and

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vulgarisms. Worthy of mention is The Sydney Slang Dictionary (anon., c. 1882), A Dictionary of Australian Words and Terms, published in 1924, and The Australian Language by Sidney J. Baker (1945). Since the 1960s there has been a flood of this kind of popular publishing. More recently, scholarly and popular paths have crossed with books such as G. A.Wilkes’ Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms (1978) and the Macquarie Book of Slang (Lambert, 1996, 2000). Vaux has had his successors too, with amateur lexicographers on both sides of the prison wall documenting the language of prisoners and the police, creating a store of information on which Gary Simes has drawn in his Dictionary of Australian Underworld Slang (1993). The Macquarie Dictionary, first published in 1981, set out, not to provide a colonial supplement, but to give a comprehensive account of the words of Australian English, both formal and informal. It also provided a complete set of Australian pronunciations and offered etymological information on all words entered, including Australianisms. This radically altered the filter through which Australians might view their variety of English. This dictionary came into being as the result of a coalition of academic and publishing interests in the late 1970s. Brian Clouston of Jacaranda Press saw the potential for an Australian dictionary in the education market to supplement the reading programs then being developed. His publishing goal was therefore aligned with an academic view that there was a need for an Australian English dictionary. This view emerged first at the Australian Language Research Centre at the University of Sydney, but was later taken up by a group of linguists at Macquarie University where Professor Arthur Delbridge was the Founding Professor of Linguistics. The treatment of Australian English in dictionaries up to that point, either as a small set of exotic items to be included in the text or as a supplement in the back of dictionaries to be sold in the Australian market, was felt to be totally inadequate. Mention must also be made of Professor Alex Mitchell who, in the early 1940s, defended the Australian accent. Especially from his position of influence within the ABC, he did much to shift public attitudes about Australian English. His seminal work The Pronunciation of English in Australia (1946) paved the way towards an understanding of the phonology of Australian English. The documenting of pronunciations in The

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Macquarie was made possible by the work done by Arthur Delbridge and John Bernard on the sounds of Australian English. This became one of the strengths of the dictionary. Another influential person in this field at the time was Professor Grahame Johnston of the Australian National University (ANU) who produced the Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary in 1976. Although indicative of what was to come, this dictionary was too limited in scope and too constrained by being the work of one individual to have much significance on its own. One dictionary can have impact but rarely lasting impact. The true success of The Macquarie Dictionary was in its penetration of the dictionary market at every level. In particular, its range of educational dictionaries created a sense of having taken root, while the development of a home-grown thesaurus in 1984, based on the headword list of the dictionary, added to the public awareness of the nature and distinctiveness of Australian English. The first Australian dictionary for the education market was the Heinemann Australian Dictionary (1976), which had a good deal of success, particularly in its home state of Victoria. But the Heinemann dictionary suffered, as did the Pocket Oxford, from having too small a reservoir of data and from being limited to just one part of the marketplace. The publication of The Macquarie in 1981 was followed in 1988 by the Australian National Dictionary (AND) which took items of Australian origin or significance and provided detailed information about them, in particular a generous range of citations to document the use of each word and fill out its meaning. While written in the same vein as Austral English, in the Oxford lexicographic style, it served to complement The Macquarie. The complete account could now be enhanced by the AND’s focus on the more limited set of Australianisms. Both books became basic reference works on Australian English. The success of The Macquarie led the way for the Oxford and Collins dictionaries to Australianise their editions to a greater or lesser degree for the Australian market. Oxford University Press did this more thoroughly than Collins, thanks to the establishment at ANU of the Australian National Dictionary Centre which used the large amount of work done on the AND as the basis for its Australianisation of its local dictionaries. Collins relied on a coverage of the items of all the major varieties of

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English worldwide but within a framework that was essentially British English. Lexicographical works were supplemented initially by the Australian Government Publishing Service’s Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers (1966) which, though produced for the public service in Australia, became the de facto style guide for much of the publishing community. This book was alone in the field for many years, but in the 1990s it was joined by a number of such guides, notably Stephen Murray-Smith’s Right Words (1987) and Nicholas Hudson’s Modern Australian Usage (1993).These books were in the style established by H. W. Fowler, where one person attempted to record the standard of the community and in doing so inevitably intruded their own preferences and prejudices. The most influential of the rivals to the Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers has been the Cambridge Australian English Style Guide (1995), which relied to a much greater extent than its predecessors on corpus evidence and for that reason was a better guide to the usages of the language community. It also positioned Australian English between British and American English. In the 1990s some of the interest that had been directed towards Aboriginal languages spilled over into the study of Aboriginal English as a variety of English in Australia. This was accompanied by interest in other varieties as spoken by Australians for whom English was not a native language but whose communities were large enough to produce an identifiable variety of English. This, in effect, meant Italian Australian English and Greek Australian English. There was also an increased focus on regional difference in Australian English, always a topic to excite interest but one about which too little was known. The result of this was to broaden lexicography so that it considered not just Australian English but Englishes in Australia.These are some of the general concerns which are directing future research. The development of home-grown reference works in this area depends not just on the desire to maintain these essential literary tools but also on struggles within the publishing industry. Language reference books are expensive items and Australia with its small population is a tiny marketplace. Language reference in general continues to benefit from an increased reliance on data, and from the expanding possibilities for online research and delivery of information.

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NOTE ON SOURCES Sidney J. Baker, The Australian Language, Sydney and London, Angus & Robertson, 1945; J. R. L. Bernard (ed.), The Macquarie Thesaurus, Sydney, Macquarie Library, 1984; Arthur Delbridge et al. (eds), The Macquarie Dictionary, Sydney, Macquarie Library, 1981; H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford, OUP, 1926; Katherine Harber et al. (eds), Heinemann Australian Dictionary, South Yarra, Heinemann Educational Australia, 1976; Nicholas Hudson, Modern Australian Usage, Melbourne, OUP, 1993; Grahame Johnston (ed.), The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, Melbourne, OUP, 1976; James Lambert (ed.), Macquarie Book of Slang, Sydney, Macquarie Library, 1996 and 2000; Gilbert H. Lawson, A Dictionary of Australian Words and Terms, Sydney, Direct Hosiery Company, 1924; Alexander Mitchell, The Pronunciation of English in Australia, Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1946; E. E. Morris, Austral English, London, Macmillan, 1898; James A. H. Murray et al. (eds), Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, OUP, 1933; Stephen Murray-Smith, Right Words, Ringwood,Viking, 1987; Pam Peters, The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide, Melbourne, CUP, 1995; W. S. Ramson (ed.), Australian National Dictionary, Melbourne, OUP, 1988; Gary Simes (ed.), A Dictionary of Australian Underworld Slang, Melbourne, OUP, 1993; Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers, Canberra, AGPS, 1966 (6th edn 2002); Sydney Slang Dictionary, Sydney, H. J. Franklin, c. 1882; James Hardy Vaux, The Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux including a new and comprehensive vocabulary of the flash language, B. Field (ed.), London, W. Clowes, 1819; G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, Sydney, SUP, 1978.

Case-study: Government Publishing FRANK THOMPSON Governments have always been prolific publishers. Much of our knowledge about the Sumerian civilisation, for example, comes from clay tablets in cuneiform produced by government scribes. From the late eighteenth century in England, Hansard has been recording the daily parliamentary debates, while the demand for printed texts of laws, reports, discussion papers and so on has continued to grow. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the colonies emerged in Australia in the nineteenth century each established its own printing operation to disseminate colonial government information. These government printers produced a wide range of material, from books to postage stamps. Following Federation in 1901 the federal government’s printing and publishing requirements were carried out by the Victorian Government Printer. This arrangement continued even after the federal government

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had moved from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927, with the Canberra printing works operating as a branch of the Victorian establishment. It was not until 1932, when Leslie Johnstone was appointed the first Government Printer, that the Victorian government formally relinquished responsibility for Commonwealth printing. Just as the publisher’s role evolved out of the early printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so the role of Australian government printers changed after the Second World War into a more complex one involving editorial input, design and marketing. For the first half of the century, government departments acted as publishers, commissioning their printing needs from a variety of sources including the Government Printing Office. By the early 1960s, however, the federal government was receiving considerable public criticism over the poor design of its published material, the sometimes turgid and impenetrable bureaucratic prose, and the sheer inability of citizens to discover which department actually published what and, more importantly, where it could be obtained. This led to the 1964 Erwin Report, which recommended to parliament the establishment of the Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) and its amalgamation with the Government Printing Office. This was accomplished in 1970. The alliance was always a difficult one. Printing is, of course, only one of many steps in the publishing process, and the printers resented their proud tradition being subordinated to newcomers who knew less about printing. Furthermore, many of the significant government printing functions did not require publishing expertise, such as Hansard, bills and Acts. The fact that the head of AGPS continued to be the Government Printer, drawn from the printing trade, and the policy of promoting printing personnel into the publishing branch, ensured over time that publishing played a subordinate role in the organisation. Nevertheless, by Australian or even world standards, AGPS was a huge publishing house, producing over 4000 titles per year ranging from the daily Hansard to scholarly studies on native flora and fauna. Indeed, the majority of its printing was done by outside contractors since the existing printing works were inadequate to meet the production demands of so many titles. For much of its existence, AGPS did not perform the entrepreneurial

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publishing role of originating manuscripts, except for the Style Manual which became the accepted editorial reference throughout Australia. Manuscripts that originated in government departments were brought to AGPS for editorial advice, design, printing and marketing. AGPS Press was established in 1986 and it successfully originated manuscript and book ideas, usually, although not always, from existing government material. In the 1980s and early 1990s, AGPS had a number of first-class editors, an excellent design studio, a huge mail-order department, and ten bookshops located in all the capital cities as well as Townsville and Albury. The Fraser government was keen to privatise a number of government businesses and, as part of the process to privatise AGPS, called tenders for the sale of the bookshops in 1982. The following year the new Labor government halted that particular initiative, but by 1987 there were strong pressures for all government businesses to rationalise and corporatise their functions. Unfortunately, this was an extremely difficult task for AGPS. Times and technology had changed, making the printing side of the business basically redundant, a fact borne out by the demise or drastic downgrading of the state government printers. Matters were not helped by the inability of most busy politicians to understand the difference between printing and publishing, and shortly after the return of the Coalition government in 1996 AGPS was broken up and government publishing returned to pre-Erwin days. Although AGPS was by far the largest and most dominant government publisher, it was not the sole government body involved in publishing. A number of institutes, or independent statutory authorities, were established in the decades following the Second World War and many were active publishers. Prominent among these were the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Institute of Family Studies and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Indeed, the last of these has become a significant publisher under the Aboriginal Studies Press imprint. Other governmentfunded organisations, such as the National Library of Australia, the Australian Archives, the War Memorial and the National Gallery of Australia, have been active publishers in the past few decades. The South Australian government established Wakefield Press in 1983 to produce books for its sesquicentennial celebration in 1986 and it was subsequently

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privatised and is now a leading regional publisher.The ABC continues to be a book publisher of note, as does the CSIRO. New developments in information technology towards the end of the twentieth century brought dramatic changes to how and what governments published. Nevertheless, they have continued to publish, albeit often in new forms, as they seek to fulfill the fundamental right of citizens in a democracy to information and knowledge. NOTE ON SOURCES AGPS, Corporate Planning: Senior Management Committee Seminar 1990; Discussion Paper: Rationalisation of AGPS Non Product Retailing Businesses, 17 December 1991; AGPS Staff Bulletin Newsletter, vol. 1, no. 11, February 1986, and vol. 2, no. 24, December 1988; Report from the Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary and Government Publications (Erwin Report), Parliamentary Paper 32, Commonwealth Government Printer, Canberra, 1964; Report of the Joint Working Party to Reform and Restructure AGPS, December 1989; Review to Assess the Impact of Technology on the GPO, October 1989; Patricia Rolfe, ‘Canberra’s Word Machine’, Bulletin, 5 May 1987; Frank W. Thompson, Product Driven vs. Market Driven, AGPS, 7 November 1990.

CHAPTER 12

Readers and Reading Patrick Buckridge An overview of Australian reading since 1945 needs to consider ‘reading’ in its three commonly used senses: as reading matter (what people read), as an activity (how they read), and as a social institution (in effect, why they read – as when we speak about ‘the value of reading’ or wonder gloomily about ‘the future of reading’). We have a great deal of information on the first of these dimensions, the books themselves. The archives can tell us what books were being bought, borrowed, prescribed and reviewed during this period, and hence – with a fair degree of probability – what books were being read. The challenge here is to find a historical pattern in the mass of information. Fortunately there have been a few widely spaced ‘snapshots’ of Australian reading habits through the second half of the twentieth century. The earliest, a brief and anonymous survey published in 1953 by Sydney University’s Current Affairs Bulletin, set out to inquire ‘how [Australian] people obtain their books, what books they read, and why’. By that time, it stated, the number of book buyers in Australia had trebled since 1939, with less than 30 per cent of all books produced in, and imported into, Australia being bought by individuals, the remainder going to schools, public libraries or commercial lending libraries. Books in greatest demand for individual purchase included Nicholas Monsarrat’s The Cruel Sea (75 000 copies), Thor Heyerdahl’s The Kon-tiki Expedition (60 000) and Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice (45 000), with titles by Agatha Christie, Peter

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Cheyney, Ion Idriess, Frank Clune, Alan Marshall and Chester Wilmot all selling in the tens of thousands, and Boswell’s London Journal a somewhat surprising 17 000. ‘Serious reading’ – so-called in the survey – tended to be associated more with the free, public book stock than with privately purchased books. The survey identifies several historical factors whose effects had combined over time to produce ‘a new class of reader’ in the Australia of the early 1950s. One factor was the rise of free public libraries, both state and municipal, which provided unprecedentedly wide access to books for self-education and improvement – books on fine arts, science, sociology, psychology and philosophy, religion and languages – as well as to translations of the great European writers such as Kafka, Sartre, Gide, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Another factor cited by the survey was the vast increase in the number of active book-readers brought into being by the Forces Education Service during the war, with the ‘multiplier effect’ of larger editions and lower unit costs made possible by the expanded market.Yet another factor was the coming of Penguin Classics, according to the survey ‘possibly the greatest single contribution to the spread of serious reading since the dawn of commercial publishing in Britain’. A later snapshot was the 1978 study of book reading and buying commissioned by the Australia Council. Twelve years after that, in 1990, the Council commissioned an update (Books – Who Reads Them?) which registered a number of significant changes (and was itself updated in 1995). One trend that is evident in these later surveys is a steady drop in the number of book-buyers in Australia, certainly between 1978 and 1989, where a straightforward comparison of population percentages is possible (20 to 11 per cent), and at least inferentially also between 1953 and 1978. This is no doubt related to the sharp increase in book prices relative to the CPI between 1978 and 1989, and also, again by inference, since the early 1950s, when the price of books had in fact dropped significantly against the cost of living since the end of the war. It is also related, clearly, to growing competition from other recreational resources such as records, the cinema and, more recently, videos. Book borrowing, which tailed off in the 1950s with the demise of the commercial lending libraries, made a slight comeback after the 1970s, perhaps with the increase in local municipal libraries and the continuing rise of book

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prices. Fiction purchases have made up about a third of the reading diet of Australians over the last half-century, although library borrowings of fiction are in excess of 60 per cent. Recent and contemporary fiction, especially Australian fiction, has made a strong showing among readers in the last two decades, while poetry has sunk almost beneath the horizon.The last thirty years have also seen the rise of various new ‘schools’ of fiction and life-writing focused, for example, on the experience of women, Aboriginal Australians, young adults, migrants, gays and other groups. This writing has addressed and generated its own, fairly limited, readerships, hardly comparable in sales volume with the likes of Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, Dick Francis, Scott Turow and Wilbur Smith. More conspicuous in their impact on readers have been the series of bestsellers that have overwhelmed the market at intervals since the 1950s, from They’re a Weird Mob through The Thorn Birds and The Power of One to the ‘Harry Potter’ books, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Da Vinci Code. During this period, Australian authors like Patrick White, Thomas Keneally, David Malouf, Helen Garner and Peter Carey have very occasionally made some inroads in the market, but generally speaking Australians have bought, borrowed and read the books provided to them by the British and American publishing empires. There is, however, much that a books-based survey of national reading habits cannot reveal. It tells us very little, for example, about reading as a distinct activity or range of activities. This dimension is considerably less amenable to historical description; but, again, there are some indicators of change and continuity in the practice of reading throughout the period. The expanded and diversified book-readership of the immediate post-war years gave rise to a strongly ‘reader-centred’ approach to books of all kinds, and a strong reaction to this was certainly one of the factors contributing to an ‘elite vs popular’ polarisation of reading practices in the 1950s. On the one hand, intensive forms of literary-critical reading – American-style ‘New Criticism’ and Cambridge-style ‘Practical Criticism’ – began to be practised and taught in university English departments around the country, and to be demonstrated in a sharply ‘legislative’ mode on the radio by influential reviewers like the poet A. D. Hope. On the other hand, the ‘pictorialisation’ of reading, encouraged by

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imported comics, cartoons and the ‘Classics Illustrated’ series – ostensibly designed for children – represented an important and irreversible shift in the nature of the reading process, a near-convergence, in effect, with the pictorial reading practices already being developed by the cinema and television. This new kind of reading, largely condemned and excluded from the sphere of ‘good reading’ by the cultural and educational guardians of the 1950s and 1960s, has of course continued to flourish. Armando Petrucci instances even newer, more anarchic modes of mass reading behaviour shaped by the electronic and digital media environment: the practice of ‘zapping’ (rapid channel-changing) is said to be ‘an absolutely new and individual technique of audio-visual consumption and creation’; so too, he argues, is the ability to follow the thread of ‘the immense, fluvial plots of the daily soap operas’. Australia, with its breathtaking rate of uptake for new technologies, is undoubtedly well to the fore in this regard. And to take an even more recent example, the full effect of ‘text-messaging’ on reading behaviour is yet to be seen; but for those who are horrified by rampant abbreviationism and who pine for the beauty of whole words and sentences, the good news may be the apparent return of the ear: recent sales of audio-books have skyrocketed in recent years, suggesting a keener sensitivity to the sound of literary language than at any time since the advent of television. Reading, finally, can be thought of as an institution – which is to say as ‘a more or less coherent set of relationships, beliefs, and practices, organised around a specific social function or functions’. In this sense, reading in Australia has come through a very fraught fifty years. A virtual chasm opened up in the 1950s between a reverence for ‘serious’, ‘good’ or ‘studious’ reading and an anxious disapproval of worthless or even dangerous reading, such as comics, pornography and propaganda. The ‘censorship crisis’ of the late 1960s, ignited by bans on new novels by Gore Vidal and Philip Roth, among others, put the reverence on a collision course with the anxiety, and in doing so revealed the depth and intensity of both. Since the 1970s the temperature has cooled. Quietly but inexorably the status of reading as the ultimate source of cultural wisdom and social authority – a position it has maintained, through a great variety of historical circumstances, for thousands of years – has been eroded by rival

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claimants. In Australia, as in most western countries, that erosion has been reflected in political and philosophical critiques of reading in its traditionally valued forms, and in the rise of cultural studies and media studies in universities and schools since the 1980s. To this has been added, over the last decade or so, yet another challenge to the traditional authority of reading in Australia, namely that remarkable series of literary masks and impostures – Helen Demidenko (Darville), Wanda Koolmatrie (Leon Carmen) and others – which have further attenuated any claim of special access to truth and authenticity that the institution of reading would once have made. Yet in the face of the many assaults on its institutional credentials, the closing years of the twentieth century witnessed a strong practical reassertion of the value of reading from some sections of the Australian population, in particular through book clubs, reading groups and writers’ festivals. This reading revival, as it might be termed, is a highly diverse phenomenon. Leaving the festivals aside, even the clubs and groups are organised on a variety of bases, some associated with a bookshop or publisher but most having no external affiliations. Some restrict what they read to particular genres; others mix both genres and periods in their book-selections. The great majority of members of these reading groups are women. But the point of real interest in the assessment of late twentiethcentury reading is the way in which, as an institution, reading has already begun to reinvent itself outside the contemporary higher education system. The history of the institution of reading, unlike the largely linear histories of reading matter and of the act of reading, may turn out to be more cyclical in form than it once appeared. NOTE ON SOURCES ‘Australian Reading Habits’, Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 12, no. 3, University of Sydney, 25 May 1953, p. 38; P. Brenac and A. Stevens, The Reading and Buying of Books in Australia, Sydney, Australia Council Arts Information Program, 1978; Books – Who Reads Them? A Study of Borrowing and Buying in Australia, by Hans Hoegh Guldberg, Sydney, Economic Strategies, 1990; P. Buckridge, ‘Clearing a Space for Australian Literature, 1940–1965’, in Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss (eds), Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, OUP, 1998, pp. 169–92; ‘Reading to Read: A Future for Reading’, in A History of Reading in the West, G. Cavallo and R. Chartier (eds), trans. Lydia G. Cochrane, Cambridge,

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Polity Press, 1999, p. 362; Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1977, p. 104; Cora V. Baldock, Australia and Social Change Theory, Sydney, Ian Novak, 1978, p. 107; Judith Brett, ‘Publishing, Censorship and Writers’ Incomes, 1965–1988’, in L. T. Hergenhan (ed.), The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, Penguin, 1988, pp. 454–66.

Case-study: Baby Boomers at Play PATRICK BUCKRIDGE In 1990–91, with two other researchers, I conducted an intensive study of contemporary Australian reading habits. Our idea was not to produce a comprehensive snapshot of the nation but rather a ‘case-study’ of ‘baby boomers’, exploring in some depth the character and texture of the boomers’ reading cultures. As well as looking at the content and process of their reading, we were interested in the larger significance and value they attached to reading as a recreational activity. Those we selected for interview were then between 45 and 55 years of age, white, Anglo-Celtic, living in Brisbane or at the Gold Coast, and working in ‘professional’ occupations. Most importantly, they all described themselves as ‘readers’, that is, as people whose preferred recreation was reading books. There were fourteen women and twelve men. Class, religious and educational backgrounds were fairly diverse (as were their current political and religious views), but all had university degrees, and most described themselves (with greater or lesser conviction) as ‘middle class’. Our interest in this segment of society came from a curiosity about the connections between reading and social power. The baby-boomer generation was (and still is) a highly influential group in Australian society. In addition to the status and power baby boomers could command as professionals, they also possessed the social momentum that comes from being part of a major demographic bulge.We were also curious about the connection between reading and ethics, as they were professionals with ethical ideals and regulatory codes of behaviour. We were therefore looking out for any special connections between their recreational reading and systems of ethical and social values. Finally, the existence of identifiable, non-literary reading techniques within certain professions – such as legal

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interpretation, medical diagnosis or spatial modelling – suggested that we might discover transferences of these techniques to the sphere of literary reading. Two interviews were conducted with each participant: the first dealt with their personal backgrounds, their past and present involvement with book culture, and their attitudes towards reading; the second dealt with their ways of reading and responding to three particular works of fiction – Franz Kafka’s short story ‘Metamorphosis’, Helen Garner’s novella The Children’s Bach, and one of the ‘Cliff Hardy’ stories from Peter Corris’s Heroin Annie (respectively a Modernist literary classic, an Australian novel and a piece of ‘genre-fiction’) – which they were asked, at the end of the first interview, to take away and read within a month.

Attitudes to reading An almost invariable attitude that emerged in talking about people’s current reading was that, while most were more than happy to discuss their interests and habits with the interviewers, they seemed to want to preserve their reading as a private recreational activity, one to be shared only with family and particular friends or colleagues. For the majority of this group, reading was something that ‘really mattered’, promoting wellbeing, fulfilment and self-worth. For example, a librarian stated: I tend to be a very private reader . . . I don’t discuss it with people. I might if there was somebody that I knew genuinely shared my interest . . . But my experience of trying to talk to other people about things that really matter is that most commonly they don’t care . . . I find at work if you try to raise some topic of substance, nobody’s interested.

There was a slightly paradoxical sense that reading is a lonely activity because of its private nature but that this was also part of its attraction. Added to this was a commonly expressed desire for a ‘kindred spirit’ with whom to discuss books. Some readers nostalgically reminisced about their university days which had been characterised by the excitement of encountering new texts and discussing them freely and exhaustively. This sort of collective discovery and pleasure seemed to have been lost,

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to be replaced by the pleasure of recreational reading which allowed time alone, separate from work and family.

Uses of books While all the participants had identified themselves as ‘readers’, the sheer quantity of their reading varied from a book a day to fewer than one a month. (For convenience, we decided to call a reading rate of more than a book a week ‘heavy’, a rate of less than one a month ‘light’, with ‘moderate’ in between.) Most respondents drew a firm distinction between reading for pleasure and reading for information; however, ‘pleasure’ meant different things to different people. For some readers a book’s ‘aesthetic’ qualities – that is, the beauty of its language, the cleverness of the plot or the complexity of the characters – were given as the single major component of the pleasure experienced; others made a distinction between aesthetic and ‘entertainment’ values, giving ‘entertainment value’ as the main pleasure component, and placing aesthetic values as either a distant second or an unwelcome distraction from the entertainment. It might have been expected that those who read fewer books would be more ‘intensive’ readers, hence more attuned to ‘aesthetic’ qualities, and that, conversely, those who read more books would be more interested in entertainment and less interested in aesthetic values. This was true in some cases, but not in others. There did seem, however, to be a ready association between types of pleasure and types of books and authors. Readers who described their reading pleasure non-aesthetically, using words like ‘escape’, ‘entertainment’, ‘relaxation’ and ‘enjoyment’, tended to read generically, and along gender-differentiated lines: adventure, political intrigue, science fiction and travel for men; historical novels, personal relationship novels, crime, mystery, and ‘block-buster’ or ‘dynasty’ novels for the women (with some overlapping caused by recommendation between partners). Authors mentioned in the entertainment category included Harold Robbins, Jeffrey Archer, Dick Francis, Agatha Christie, Ken Follett, Elmore Leonard, Dorothy Sayers, Len Deighton, Wilbur Smith, Robert Ludlum, John le Carré, Sydney Sheldon and Jackie Collins. Readers who described their pleasure aesthetically – using words and

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phrases like ‘aesthetics’, ‘fleshing-out the character’, ‘developing a relationship with the writer’, ‘good prose’, ‘intellectual activity’ or ‘beauty of language’ – invoked a quite different, less conventionally generic set of textual categories: poetry, ‘English fiction’, magic realism, contemporary Australian authors and poets, ‘good literature’ and Australian ‘classics’. Nor was there any clear indication of a gender differentiation in this group. Favoured authors here included Robert Graves, Lawrence Durrell,Virginia Woolf, Herman Hesse, Charles Dickens, Doris Lessing, Jane Austen, Anita Brookner, James Joyce, Gustave Flaubert, Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Theroux and J. R. R. Tolkien; and among Australian writers, Patrick White, Thomas Keneally, David Malouf, Jessica Anderson, Helen Garner, Sally Morgan and Peter Carey.

Ways of reading In discussing the reading of the Kafka story, most questions were aimed at defining the readers’ strategies of interpretation. About half decided at an early stage that the narrative was a dream, a hypothesis that was usually abandoned before the end of the story, but often without any ‘sensemaking’ strategy to replace it. A small number refused to adopt anything other than a ‘realist’ reading strategy and could make only limited sense of the story. The remaining six or seven adopted (with some prompting and sometimes reluctantly) one variant or another of a ‘metaphoric’ reading strategy, in which the literal implausibilities of the story were rationalised by reading it as a metaphor for some aspect of human life. Gregor’s transformation and gradual exclusion from his family, for example, was read as representing the failure of families to cope with chronic illness or physical incapacitation. It was also read as showing how society ‘stigmatises those with disabilities’, or how the middle-class family ‘scapegoats’ its children by exploiting their love and guilt (according to one reader, Gregor’s sister would be the next to find herself thus excluded). Another reader felt it was about ‘the futility . . . of railing against social structures and forces’. In one unprompted instance of metaphoric reading, a woman pharmacist found the story ‘disturbing’ because it reminded her of her own experience of growing up with an invalid father. There seemed also to be some correlation within the group between professions that entailed a

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close and direct involvement with the community (social work, for example, and school-teaching) and a willingness to ‘read the story into sense’. By contrast, we failed to find any clear correlation between different ways of reading fiction and different professional protocols of interpretation and inference, as for example legal interpretation of evidence, statistical interpretation of numerical data, or diagnostic interpretation of medical symptoms. Where this latter correlation did seem to manifest itself was in certain respondents’ generalised (and perhaps idealised) descriptions of their reading in the first interview, contrasted with their actual reading as demonstrated by the second interview. In the first interview, for example, a surveyor spoke interestingly and at length about his topographical sense of narrative structure; but neither this nor the few other hinted correlations between professional and literary modes of interpretation seemed evident in practice. The questions directed exclusively to the Corris story, ‘Escort to an Easy Death’, tried to explore the extent to which, in the reading process, the ideological assumptions of the ‘hard-boiled’ detective story floated free of their generic rationale and became subject to broader social and ethical scrutiny. In effect, we were trying to see how, if at all, such readers’ values could be invested in fiction of this kind. The topics of violence and gender were broached by means of questions about the physical violence of the action, the attitudes expressed towards women in the text, and the moral character of the detective-hero, Cliff Hardy. The violence of the story was almost universally read as generically appropriate and hence legitimate. Only one reader (a male scientist) found it objectionable, seeing it as endorsing the use of violence in resolving disputes. Another (a female librarian) expressed her dislike for the genre as a whole on account of its conventional violence. The remainder regarded the violence as ‘typical’, ‘not a worry’, ‘part of the story’, ‘not specially noticeable’, and in some cases ‘toned down’ somewhat in comparison with Corris’s American models. The question about women elicited a similar range of responses, with some readers indicating various degrees of disquiet at the story’s chauvinism. Asked to name the values they felt Cliff Hardy stood for, some answered in terms of personal values – ‘honesty’, ‘integrity’, ‘individualism’ and ‘professionalism’ – while others felt he was too formulaic to be

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really visible as a character. Some readers felt he embodied wider social and political values – a critique of the ‘corruption’ of capitalism and of the ‘triviality of modern existence’. Asked if they liked and/or identified with him as they read, however, only about half the readers replied in the affirmative. The rest either felt entirely neutral or actively disliked him. Our last question on Corris was whether readers had noticed the Australian setting, and if so what difference, if any, this had made to their reading of the story. Six readers had not noticed the Sydney milieu at all (they had assumed it was set in America) and a large majority claimed that it made no difference to their reading of the story. (The fact that all our readers were living in and around Brisbane may help to account for this response.) The same ‘nationality question’ asked about The Children’s Bach received a noticeably different response. Most readers found it a more palpably ‘Australian’ text than Corris’s, and nearly half felt that its ‘Australian-ness’ was a particularly appealing quality of the novel. The remaining questions on Garner were based on the premise that this text would be perceived as more directly challenging to some readers’ social and ethical values than the other two. Our aim was to explore the ways in which readers engaged ethically with the story. Rather than short-circuit the process by asking outright whether they agreed with the book’s values, we asked less global questions: what characters they liked and disliked; whether they found any elements in the story offensive or distasteful; whether they felt the book endorsed any particular set of values (and if so, what). Nearly all readers (of both genders) said they liked, sympathised with or identified with Athena, the fortyish wife and mother who leaves her husband and handicapped child, to have a brief affair with a younger man in another city. Almost the same number also disliked Dexter, the husband, though a small number disliked Athena’s lover, Philip, more. Such ‘libertarian’ sympathies on the part of our readers had not been apparent from the first interviews, indicating that reading The Children’s Bach may have effected a (presumably temporary) ‘libertarian shift’ in values for a number of respondents. There was some evidence that those readers for whom this ‘libertarian shift’ occurred may have resolved their internal contradiction in part by attaching greater importance than usual to the novel’s narrative trajectory. There was, in other words, some suggestion of an ethically induced

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practice of ‘structural reading’, directly comparable with the similarly ethically induced practice of ‘metaphoric reading’ noted in the Kafka discussions. Both involve a degree of abstraction from the intuitive practice of character identification, which remains the fundamental and dominant reading strategy for these readers, as for other comparable groups.

Conclusions The main general conclusion to be drawn from our study is that, even within such a homogeneous group, there seems to be a variety of ways in which readers value books, relate them to the rest of their lives, and read them. The strong preference for solitary reading that emerged, and the relative lack of interest in participating in a more public and collective literary culture, contrasted with widely received views as to the importance of that culture.The evidence that certain more ‘sophisticated’ forms of reading occur independently of the other forms of intellectual or professional training also seemed of interest, reinforcing a sense that book-reading has remained, for many people, an intensely and deliberately unworldly personal practice. What we did not find – by contrast, perhaps, with the habits of earlier generations – was any particular suggestion of a connection between recreational reading and cultural power, such that these readers’ reading preferences, values and methods of interpretation reflected their social or professional aspirations in any obvious ways. NOTE ON SOURCES P. Buckridge, P. Murray and J. Macleod, Reading Professional Identities: The Boomers and Their Books, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, paper 3, Griffith University, 1995; Hans Guldberg, Books – Who Reads Them? A Study of Borrowing and Buying in Australia, Sydney, Australia Council, 1990. Guldberg’s list of most borrowed and bought books yields only three of the above: in order, Dick Francis (who topped the whole list), Jeffrey Archer and Agatha Christie.

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Case-study: Biggles and Beyond – A Young Man’s Reading JOHN NIEMAN Tired of depression and war, Australians were starting to enjoy the good life in the late 1940s. It was a period when adolescents became teenagers, and when popular music changed forever. It was also the era of the single wage, home ownership, and perhaps a Holden in the driveway as well. I can still vividly remember getting our first car, our first telephone and, later on, our first television. Books were becoming popular entertainment and played a vital role in my boyhood.

A personal revelation It’s rare to be able to pinpoint an early reading experience. But I can. I was six and a half, and it was about 7.45 am on Sunday, 11 December 1949. That morning I was chased out of my parents’ bed to go and get the paper, which was my job each weekday and on Saturday mornings. But there were no Sunday papers in Melbourne in those days, so what was going on? Suspecting a practical joke, I made my way to the front gate and there was a miracle: a special edition of the Sun News Pictorial with news of Menzies’ federal election victory. I can still visualise the photograph and the headline ‘Labor swept out’. I was already an omnivorous reader, a habit my mother fostered with Little Golden Books, then a recent phenomenon. But this newspaper was real reading. Certainly I had read the paper before but mainly the comic strips or the football pages. My ability to conjure images from words must have been good for my age, probably as compensation for being tone-deaf and always lastpicked in any sort of playground game. A survey of my early books, still kept in a corner bookcase at my father’s home, reveals that my reading tastes were certainly not eclectic. Adventure stories predominated: Chatterbox Annual, Modern Book for Boys, Coles Great Boys Book, Western Film Annual, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Annual, The Champion Annual and that universal favourite, The Adventures of Robin Hood, in an early bookof-the-film edition. Most were published in England, letterpress printed on thick paper. The page sizes – ten-and-a-half inches by eight inches,

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or nine-and-a-half by seven-and-a-half – were a legacy of the sheet-fed printing machines of that era. Two interesting items among my collection were locally produced: The Boy, printed by local Melbourne company Morris and Walker, and the Wonder Annual, from another local firm, Specialty Press. These were commercial printers, not publishers. Both books are printed on cheaper paper than their English equivalents. The raw paper, with a high percentage of eucalypt pulp, has been heavily calendered – that is, pressed between heavy, heated rollers to iron out the surface. As a result, the paper is relatively thin and even-surfaced, unlike the blotting paper texture of the imported books, which were made from softwood pulp. The local items were also bound in a cheaper, semi-quarterbound fashion. Possibly these were ‘bandwagon’ books, where local printers sought to make a quick profit by jumping on the bandwagon of book sales enjoyed by the English publishers. By using local stories or rewriting and localising English texts, and then printing them cheaply on whatever paper was available, there was profit to be made. At that time, Australia did not make fine paper in any quantity, if at all. The nation was just emerging from wartime austerity, and Menzies came to power on a promise to repeal petrol rationing. I can remember my mother’s joy at being able to make jam again when sugar rationing ended. Any paper-making machinery would have been of pre-1939 design and manufacture. Even as late as 1962, when I was working at Australian Paper Manufacturers, there were fifty-year-old paper-making machines still in full production. Rotary offset lithography, which used thin metal plates – either aluminium or aluminium/copper/steel exposed by a photographic process – was coming into its own. An inherent advantage was that it transferred the image, or offset it, to a rubber blanket which then pressed the ink into the paper. This meant that even poor-quality paper could be printed with exceedingly good results, with little make-ready or preparation.

Wonderful adventures Two novels stand out in my boyhood collection: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (J. M. Dent, London, 1950) by Selma Lagerlof (who had

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won a Nobel Prize), and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Ward Lock). The Defoe was my first serious book and I devoured it. Tightly typeset, with no pictures apart from the frontispiece, it was my passport to adult reading. My edition has, on its imprint page, the declaration: ‘THIS BOOK IS PRINTED IN COMPLETE CONFORMITY WITH THE AUTHORIZED ECONOMY STANDARDS’.

It was printed in Bungay, Suffolk, at a printery no doubt spared by the Blitz, and the type is just worn enough to make me think it was a reprint from well-used standing matter. We think of book spin-offs as a modern phenomenon, but in 1953 a magazine for boys called The Silver Jacket introduced me to Captain James Bigglesworth, that popular British creation of author W. E. Johns. Biggles and his pals, Bertie, Ginger and Algy (short for Algernon), used air power to fight all sorts of bad eggs. At about the same time there was a radio serial, The Air Adventures of Biggles, with machine-gun sound effects and screaming aircraft engines, and the usual collection of villains. My childhood collection includes many Biggles books, including several printed in Czechoslovakia on cheap paper. Biggles was undoubtedly every boy’s favourite hero. When Attorney-General Gareth Evans sent the RAAF to fly over the Franklin River during the conservation battle in 1983, he was immediately dubbed ‘Biggles’.

Australia at war The seventeen-book series on Australia during the war had been purchased in 1949 by my father, a serving airman, as part of an offer by the Services to their members. Case-bound and cloth-covered, they were the official history, with four books each on the Navy and Air Force, seven for the Army and a variety of other volumes on such things as the Volunteer Defence Force (our ‘Dad’s Army’). With the Korean War in full flight, these books were grist to my omnivorous reading mill. The series was published in the period 1941–47 and printed by Halstead Press in Sydney, then the country’s largest book printer. Halstead Press was an independent division of Angus & Robertson, and took on commercial work outside of A&R’s own publishing. The paper and binding of the wartime history are of the ‘economy style’, and it is likely that these volumes would have had high priority for the scarce paper supplies. They

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also helped satisfy the wartime demand for reading material, when there were virtually no book imports and only limited local production.

Discovering the treasure trove of Mr Caton’s library In 1953, my tenth year, my mother introduced me to the wonders of the Koornang private library at 231 Koornang Road, Carnegie, just near the tram terminus. The library was well sited for its paying customers, as commuting from the terminus guaranteed you a seat and the thirty- to forty-minute journey to the city was an ideal reading opportunity. For me, trips to this library were magic. Mum and I would walk down an unmade lane and then across a big paddock. We had no car and this was a bit of an adventure, especially when Wirth’s circus came to town and camped on the paddock. In those weeks my library visits increased exponentially. The children’s section was just inside the door, in plain view of Mr Caton who seemed permanently ensconced in a captain’s chair behind a desk piled high with books. There was no need for a sterilising unit here, as the odious fumes from Mr Caton’s ever-present pipe probably protected me from any dangerous childhood diseases. My mother borrowed three to four books a week and I must have read more than four, and as many as eight, books each week, at threepence a time. At this rate I raced through the Biggles books of W. E. Johns (ignoring his boring Gimlet series), and devoured every other children’s author, including Richmal Crompton’s William series and Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven books. All the while my reading was being ‘improved’ by my aunts who, on learning of my love of books, had their Christmas and birthday present dilemmas solved. But they were of the ‘reading for moral and educational benefit’ school and I found that such uplifting literature was not as interesting as Mr Caton’s fare. David Copperfield, Kidnapped and various tales of underprivileged boys couldn’t compare with Biggles’ racing aircraft engines. One aunt, though, did come up with a winner: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, followed by H. G.Wells’ Time Machine. However, the allegory of Orwell’s Animal Farm was lost on me until I came to study it at high school. Somewhere I came by a copy of Prester John by

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John Buchan. Printed in small type on rice or bible paper, it was a slight volume, probably a ‘travellers copy’, but what a yarn! At about this time I got a bike, and my trips to the library increased, posing a problem for our worthy librarian. Mr Caton’s method of record-keeping was to stamp the return date in the back of the book, as well as enter the book number on your card. After I had pestered him to tell me from the card whether I had read a particular book, we devised a scheme whereby he stamped the date upside down in books that I had read. This meant that I could instantly identify what I had read and when. A by-product of this system was that very soon a great proportion of the boys’ books (and Little Women by L. M. Alcott) had an upside-down date as their last entry. This gave Mr Caton little incentive to buy more, as not enough other children were reading them to make the expense worthwhile. In a flash of inspiration, Mr Caton struck a deal with me that I could read his adult books at half the going rate, which was a shilling. Sixpence was twice my pocketmoney, but then again adult books had much more text. As Mr Caton charged threepence for children’s books, my limited budget still covered about the same amount of reading. C. S. Forrester and his unlikely hero Hornblower were my introduction to the adult shelves. These were terrific yarns and started a lifelong love of things nautical, although Forrester’s most famous book, The African Queen, had little appeal. I then moved on to mystery stories, particularly those by John Creasey, who wrote many Inspector West books as well as The Toff series. I also read The Baron by Morton and later the Gideon series by Marric, not realising until very recently that these were Creasey noms de plume. Another detective series, about an Aboriginal detective called Napoleon Bonaparte, or ‘Bony’, and written by Arthur Upfield, also featured highly on my reading list. But this new treasure trove was soon exhausted and, at some risk of parental ire, Mr Caton suggested that I read Nicholas Monsarrat’s novel The Cruel Sea. Here the characters were not wildly heroic, and the action involved both danger and overwhelming boredom. This was definitely not the stuff of Biggles, who was immediately relegated to the kid’s book box. The adventures of the corvette Compass Rose, the lead character in The Cruel Sea, led me to a reading attack on subjects dear to the heart of

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many adolescent boys, violence and sex. Nicholas Monsarrat started it all and I was introduced to his novel The Nylon Pirates, which had ships and sex. Soon after came The Caine Mutiny and Peyton Place. One was great literature and the other trash but both were best ‘loaners’. Mr Caton became my mentor of the adult fiction shelves. After the rest of Monsarrat’s work, I discovered Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar and City Boy and re-read The Caine Mutiny. Nevil Shute was tried and discarded as too light, but James Jones (From Here to Eternity) and James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific were devoured. Leon Uris (Exodus), Alistair McLean, Hammond Innes and Howard Spring, as well as Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), all fed my reading appetite. My library diet also expanded to include Steinbeck, James T. Farrell, Norman Mailer, John O’Hara, Allan Sillitoe, H. E. Bates, John Updike and the fantastic stories of Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) and John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids). There must have been others, because for me the world lived in that little library by the tram terminus. In stark contrast, the Public Library in the city was something you were dragged past on the way to see the Museum. It was full of musty old books and musty old men, and students swotting for the Leaving Certificate. What a revelation the new public lending libraries were when they started to appear around 1960. Ours was a car ride away in Maple Street, Caulfield. It had bright lights, ample parking, new stocks of both novels and large-format books, and a great collection of paperbacks. And there was no borrowing fee either. Private libraries like Mr Caton’s could not compete, and Mum and I felt a bit guilty and still rented books from the local occasionally. Our new public library was quick, convenient and well stocked. For a shy teenager it was also comfortably anonymous and populated with other teenagers. In rapid succession I went to high school, discovered girls, got a job, bought a car, discovered more girls, got married, and noted somewhere in passing that Mr Caton and his library had gone.

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Case-study:The Women’s Weekly and ‘Good reading’ PATRICK BUCKRIDGE The Australian Women’s Weekly was established in 1933 by the young Frank Packer and his partner Edward Theodore, the former federal treasurer. Their new firm was Consolidated Press and the first editor of the Women’s Weekly was George Warnecke, a journalist-intellectual of liberal progressive views. After guiding the Weekly’s early development, Warnecke withdrew in favour of Alice Jackson, the first of an unbroken line of women editors. Warnecke and Jackson had little in common, politically or intellectually, but were sufficiently complementary to produce a publication with extraordinarily wide appeal. On the other hand, the magazine’s split personality persisted through the 1930s and early 1940s. Where editorial content (and some feature articles) expressed the values of a progressive-nationalist intelligentsia, most of the rest of the magazine appealed to conservative middle-class women readers whose views and values – anglophile, prudish and occasionally snobbish – were expressed in the Letters pages and elsewhere. The Weekly of the war years, however, was markedly different, and one of the topics around which the change occurred was reading, especially (but not only) ‘good reading’.The production of new books was severely curtailed by paper rationing and labour shortages during the war, and the Weekly itself was variously affected by wartime conditions. In 1940 newsprint rationing caused it to discontinue the free novel and reduce the number of pages. It was also heavily involved in the collection and distribution of donated books to Australian and American troops through the National Book Council. Both inside and outside the Services, the war functioned as a forcing-house of familiarisation with good books, from Shakespeare and the Bible to Hemingway and Faulkner. People were reading, quoting and discussing the old and the modern classics, not just thinking respectfully about them, and the Weekly’s literary features in the 1940s reflect this. Writers themselves, both past and present, begin to be subjects of interest. Stories about Dickens abound (for example, November 1946 and February 1949), and in 1949 a monthly series of biographical articles on ‘Famous Women’ begins with George Eliot and concludes, nine

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months and nine women writers later, with Harriet Beecher Stowe. Three months later a new series called ‘Poets in Private’ publishes the first of nine domestic biographies of poets, all of them dead white males, with one interesting exception, Dorothy Parker, then very much alive. What both these series have in common is an interest in the writer-ashero – exposing hidden evils, resisting tyranny, righting public wrongs or merely defying current social conventions. It is instructive to compare Les Haylen’s review of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath in 1940 with an unsigned review of Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country in 1949. Both reviews see the contemporary novel as an instrument of radical social revelation, and the modern writer as a reforming intellectual, much the same image of the writer as in the new Meanjin. This democratic idea of the writer-as-social-intellectual in effect silenced the chatty and conservative pre-war booklovers. There are very few readers’ letters about books in the 1940s, apart from calls for wider distribution of good literature to schoolchildren through mobile libraries and the donation of inscribed books to honour the war dead. As the series on famous poets’ private lives ended, in December 1950, an even longer series called ‘My Favourite Poem’ began, in which readers simply sent in their favourite short poem or excerpt. The poets chosen (though not always the poems) are notable for being part of the canon of Romantic and Victorian classics. When that series ends, in mid-1951, there are quizzes to identify famous literary characters. Even when readers are not themselves interacting with the classics, the magazine does it for them, illustrating their contemporary relevance, for example by placing passages of Shakespearean advice next to photographs of modern lovers, locating a piece of modern slang in a Trollope novel, and quoting T. S. Eliot in a paragraph on inflation and power stoppages and Byron in a mistily romantic shampoo ad. Good literature was becoming ever more closely intertwined with the good life for the Weekly and its readers in the early 1950s, and the magazine encouraged that conjunction in a variety of ways. It reported on events like the five-day Shakespeare Festival in Swan Hill,Victoria in April 1952, featuring several theatrical productions. The festival was funded by the Town Council, a spokesman for which said that the council was ‘keen for our cultural progress to keep abreast of our material riches’. The magazine’s

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new book reviewer at this time, Ainslie Baker, a well-read and sophisticated critic, compiled Christmas gift lists, both classic and contemporary, with incisive commentaries directed at particular categories of readers. The free lift-out novel returned to the Weekly in July 1952. This time it was not contemporary fiction but a 25-year-old American classic, The Great Gatsby, heralded by an unsigned article on Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, perhaps by Baker, announcing an international revival of interest in their lives and work. Baker’s reviews embody a shift of interest towards the classic works, and she often explicitly addresses ‘the critical reader’, sometimes warning them off particular books. Probably the most important new development, however, from the ‘good reading’ perspective, was Dorothy Drain’s column, ‘It Seems to Me’. The column began in 1947 and lasted until 1963, but throughout the 1950s Drain was the Weekly’s most popular and recognised writer, eventually succeeding Esmé Fenston as the magazine’s editor in the early 1970s. In her column, Drain was a strong advocate for the ‘great writers’, but she was also clearly fascinated by the ironies and paradoxes that attended their modern reception, and by their complex relations with popular fiction and with the radio. She reflects frequently, for example, on the rise and fall of popular genres like detective and science fiction stories, and on the academic ‘slumming’ of university professors like J. I. M. Stewart (aka Michael Innes) who read and even wrote pulp fiction. Somewhat drawn to science fiction herself, Drain refuses to listen to it on the radio until after the Dickens reading:‘Being so familiar with David Copperfield,’ she writes, ‘I am able to start crying as soon as an appropriate episode starts, which makes it very restful.’ Her continuing response to the place of the classics in middle-class Australia from the late 1940s to the early 1960s is a rich repository of Australian reading history. The big new theme of the 1950s, in Australia as elsewhere, was the ‘youth problem’, and the Weekly engaged with it in a number of ways: with the long-lasting American comic strip ‘Teena’ from 1949; with a picturestory series demonstrating appropriate social behaviour for young men and women; with a monthly ‘teenage issue’ from 1955; and, from 1959, with a lift-out supplement, ‘Teenagers Weekly’. The teenage issues ran several targeted features, including a column of ‘know-how for teenagers’ (hints on Beauty, Charm and Health) and a standing invitation to teenage writers

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to submit ‘short short stories’ of 1500–1800 words. Some teenage writers mistakenly thought it was a competition – an excusable error, as the Ipana Junior Writers Contest (which apparently required Ipana Toothpaste to figure in the denouement) was running concurrently. The staff reader was not inclined to be understanding about it (‘They have quite the wrong idea’), and was far from indulgent (or even helpful) in the critical feedback she provided to the half-dozen writers each month deemed ‘worthy of comment’. A tone of didactic asperity is fairly typical of the Teenage Section in these years, suggesting perhaps that the Weekly’s recognition of the teenager as an important new social category was not yet matched by a corresponding capacity to imagine it from within. Throughout the 1950s good reading was promoted as part of a strategy for civilising an unruly younger generation and re-integrating them into the wider community. Perhaps it was no accident that the ‘Famous Women’ series nearly always occupied the same page as ‘Teena’. But the magazine was prepared to acknowledge youthful resistance to the campaign. In March 1954, for example, J. Doubleday of St Leonards wrote: My father is the end. He is always putting me in my place and now he says I am not to read the comic strips in the papers. I asked him why and he said that only morons read strips and to be interested in them shows that I have a very low mentality.You should hear him. He has also banned radio serials and the latest is reading Jane Austen aloud to improve my mind till the symphony broadcast starts . . . (31 March 1954)

Five months later, the Weekly showed whose side it was on. ‘Books,’ Esmé Fenston proclaimed in a Children’s Book Week editorial,‘are everyone’s best friends.’ She went on: Today books often appear to be neglected – the mental effort of reading print is too great in an era of comic picture books, television and voices commanded by a radio switch. Balloons in comic strips and radio serials are poor substitutes for the richness that exists between the covers of great books. Youth misses a great heritage if its reading education is neglected. (18 August 1954)

The Weekly’s promotion of good reading moved into its final phases in this period. As early as 1949 it had reported the formation of the ‘Great

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Books Club’ in America. This was an organisation established by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler of the University of Chicago, essentially to encourage people to read the classics and form discussion groups to talk about them. It was taken up in Australia by the Australian–American Association (a postwar stamping-ground of Frank Packer’s), and boosted with a recycled American anecdote, hinting none-too-subtly at the ideological subtext: Mrs Lampard [of the Australian–American Association] told the story about a member of the board of directors of a big Chicago factory who called at the works at lunchtime. Seeing heads diligently bent over books he said jovially, ‘Ah, I see you are boning up on your union laws’. ‘No,’ the employees told him. ‘We are reading Confucius’. (12 March 1949)

It was, after all, the year of the National Coal Strike, and Frank Packer’s Weekly was unlikely to miss an opportunity for a dig at militant unionism. A year later there was a follow-up story about an Australian war bride becoming a Great Books discussion group leader in Milwaukee, but the campaign never caught on in Australia, despite the Weekly’s best efforts, and the magazine abandoned its campaign shortly thereafter. It did, however, lend active support to a much more unusual scheme for attracting the youth of the nation to great literature: the ‘Peter Mitchell Will Quest’. In 1921 a wealthy grazier, Peter Stuckey Mitchell, of Bringenbrong near Albury, died at the age of sixty-four, convinced of the need to ‘do something for young Australians’. Thirty-three years later, in April 1954, his widow died and it was then revealed that Mitchell had left her an amount in trust that had since grown to a quarter of a million pounds. The will directed that after her death the net income should be awarded through a series of competitions, with prizes going to fifteen unmarried women under the age of thirty, ten youths under twenty-one, and an equivalent number of soldiers, sailors and police. Candidates for the awards, which ranged in value from £500 to £60, were required to study a set list of books (comprising Peter Mitchell’s favourite classics) which included the ‘Protestant Bible’, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Kipling and Conan Doyle. The Weekly undertook to organise the quests, and the first of them (for the fifteen unmarried

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women) culminated in March 1955 in a week’s visit to Sydney for the twenty-three finalists, where they toured the beaches in a double-decker bus, went to an opera, met Johnny Ray in person, and received their prizes. What the Mitchell Will Quest did for young Australians or their familiarity with the classics is unclear; certainly it is hard not to feel uneasy at the mix of eugenic and religious ideology in the text of Mitchell’s Will (to say nothing of the sexism and imperialism). The Weekly also put its weight, then and later, behind less eccentric reading campaigns. For four months in 1961, for example, it published a weekly series of articles entitled ‘The Lifetime Reading Plan’, introduced by the American critic and broadcaster Clifton Fadiman. These were introductory essays on the ‘Great works of Western Civilisation’, from Homer and the Greeks, through Shakespeare and Milton, Rousseau and Wordsworth, Marx and Tolstoy, to T. S. Eliot and William Faulkner. The aim was not to present a self-contained course of study, but to stimulate readers to buy or borrow the original books, and to read and reread them for the rest of their lives. The series was connected with the Chicagobased Great Books Foundation, mentioned earlier, and was presumably bought as a package from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which had now taken over as the publishing arm of the Foundation. Britannica published the Great Books of the Western World, an expensive 55-volume set that serviced the Lifetime Plan directly. In 1967, in what may have been an attempt to provide its readers with a more affordable option for their self-education in the classics, the Weekly began promotion of the Literary Heritage Collection, a fortyvolume matched set of classics, published by Heron Books in the United Kingdom, to be sent to subscribers each month, following an initial gift of a four-volume complete Shakespeare for $1.95, an idea pioneered in the United States. The books in the Heritage Collection, however, were not marketed as ‘tools of self-discovery’ (Fadiman’s term for the Great Books) but as instruments of social advancement: ‘The deep blue grained Kivar bindings, set off by gleaming gold decorations, are similar in appearance to precious books found in museums and libraries of the very wealthy, printed on fine quality paper . . . they form a lifetime collection proclaiming your good taste as a decorator and your discernment as a reader.’

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By the late 1960s the Weekly’s postwar enthusiasm for promoting the reading of the classics had abated and it seems never to have returned. The magazine continued to offer its readers book-club memberships (Foyle’s and World Books Club, for example), which catered for contemporary popular fiction and non-fiction, but ‘reading the classics’ was no longer the Weekly’s business. In retrospect, the good-reading aspirations it was articulating and promoting in the 1950s might be seen as both a carryover of the intense interest in reading generated by the war and at the same time a strategy to divert that intensity into reading that was less threatening to the Establishment. Like many other aspects of the Women’s Weekly, perhaps, its promotion of good reading was thus both genuinely civilising and ideologically conservative. NOTE ON SOURCES Cyril F. Garbett, Reading in War-time, London, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1945; L.V. Biggs, Reading in War Time: Suggestions and Advice, Melbourne, Australian Reading Union, 1941; Bridget Griffen-Foley, The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 2000.

Case-study: Romancing the Reader INGRID DAY I once stopped at a garage sale and saw a few meagre magazines on display. I politely told the woman who owned the house that I’d hoped to find some books, and she led me to a side room. It was crammed with books from floor to ceiling. I bought the books . . . and I also bought an understanding of the man who owned the books. Through his books I followed his youthful interest in ships and sails, his training in the RAAF in World War II and his enthusiasm for photography. I found books he’d received as a child, and the books he planned to use to traverse the globe single-handed in the yacht which was finally to fail. I saw his life through that set of books . . . (Rob Scott, 1998)

In 2000 I completed a study of the reading tastes and practices of adult readers of fiction. The study proposed that four key social factors play a fundamental role in shaping reading practices: age, gender, tertiary education and occupation status.

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The surveys The study began with a qualitative pilot study, followed by a quantitative questionnaire and oral interviews. Survey responses were received from 103 respondents aged fifteen years and older (the oldest being eightyone), and readers were asked how often they read books, why they read, their motivation for reading particular types of books, their perceptions of what constituted ‘literature’, ‘serious writing’, ‘popular fiction’, ‘light reading’ and ‘romance’ (terms drawn from the pilot study responses), and finally what they felt they had derived from their reading. For the oral interviews, four people were interviewed from each ‘decade’ of the age range (15–81 years). Interviewees were questioned about their reading histories and encouraged to respond in a way that allowed more deeply developed narratives to unfold than was possible through the questionnaire.The oral interviews also explored whether people were actually reading what they said they were reading, their attitudes towards reading in particular genres, and their sense of the social significance of various reading choices.

Findings Initially I sought to establish what people understood by the term ‘literature’. Several descriptions emerged. For tertiary-educated professionals the most typical definition was that literature meant ‘intellectual’. As one interviewee said, ‘I think that’s where you meet the very highest minds and the highest thoughts’. For non-tertiary-educated non-professionals, literature was ‘historical’, ‘old’ or had ‘stood the test of time’. Popular fiction was typically seen as ‘lacking substance’. It was also ‘anything that makes money for the author and the publisher’, and ‘purely sensational’. Descriptions of popular fiction often included a sense of ephemerality. Reading ‘literature’ was closely linked to ‘work’, in contrast to light reading which was most often described as ‘easy to read’. Of the twenty-four interviewees, only one acknowledged reading romance novels, and of a possible 103 questionnaire respondents, only thirteen admitted to reading romantic fiction, eleven of them female. Those women who read romance said that these novels were easy to read and fitted their fragmented reading opportunities. The lack of uninterrupted

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time to read, because of child-rearing and domestic duties, was the main reason cited by female participants for ‘light’ and romance reading. Male respondents cited similar interruptions to their reading – most commonly children, work and television. They indicated the need to read in ‘fits and starts’, yet, unlike females who often chose romance novels for this reason, males were more likely to turn to a newspaper, a current affairs or financial journal, or thrillers and crime novels. The physical properties of books and cover designs also conveyed clear messages to readers: The leather ones look good . . . if you can buy them real cheap at the throwaway auctions, and you buy them with leather binding and put them along the bookshelf, it looks good! And people say ‘Oooh! You must be learned!’ It’s an investment in social status really. I go straight to the dustcover with any book, and if that doesn’t appeal to me then I won’t tend to go any further with it. If it’s got colours I like or a design or picture I like, then I’ll be ‘Ooh! That’s my book!’ I’ve found that if the covers don’t appeal to me then usually what’s inside doesn’t appeal to me either.

Survey participants frequently associated reading romance with low intelligence and education. There was also evidence that readers used reading preferences to present themselves as belonging to specific social groups – and to distance themselves from others. As one interviewee said: There are certain styles of books that will immediately put me off, and they will be your classic sort of airport novel with the glossy covers, you know, the silver or gold embossed covers. And I see them and think ‘Oh my god, no!’ . . . often you can tell a trashy novel just by looking at the cover.

There was clear evidence that male readers prefer books with ‘plot’, ‘action’ and ‘momentum’. In contrast, female readers look for ‘complexity’ and ‘character’. Male interviewees described their plot-driven pleasure in the following way: It has to have plenty of action and clear characters. I like it progressive, ongoing all the time.You turn a page and something new is happening. I like action books because they don’t beat about the bush, whereas romantic stories . . . I’ve

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never read one, but they go everywhere and tell you about all sorts of things that have just got nothing to do with what I want to know.

In contrast, a female interviewee said: ‘I like books that will focus on a person or a group of people rather than . . . on some complicated crime plot’. Another commented: I find with male writing that the events dominate more than the characters – the events manipulate the characters – whereas with females, the characters manipulate the events more. I see women authors being more character dominated, and that’s what I like. I love it when they think the same things I think. I love it when they say the same sort of thing I’d say . . . I think male authors are more dominated by the conversation between people, rather than what the characters are thinking about.

The ‘plot-driven’ reader is also most typically non-tertiary-educated and non-professional, while the most ‘character-driven’ reader is a tertiaryeducated professional. Respondents broadly suggested that ‘books are fun’ but ‘literature means work’. Interestingly, what was described as ‘work’ by one group of readers was not necessarily regarded as such by another. Most survey participants agreed that they read to ‘relax’; however, what actually constitutes relaxation, and the types of books that provide it, appears to be generated by quite different reading experiences. For example, one nontertiary-educated non-professional commented: ‘I don’t like things that go very deep into things. I prefer to keep more on the surface.’ On the other hand, a tertiary-educated professional male said: A good book is one that captures the spirit and the imagination, perhaps leaves you with a sense of awe, and definitely makes you think for a very long time. [It] touches my soul and leaves me thinking, questioning . . . or looking at certain subjects in another way.

Reading books as a leisure pastime clearly faces increasing competition from television and videos, surfing the net and going to the cinema. Participants frequently referred to the ‘ease’ of television viewing in contrast to the ‘work’ of reading. Several interviewees described the impact of television on their reading:

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Since television I’ve read less and watched more television. Before television, I read nearly all the time. I think television has destroyed my love of reading to a certain extent. [Watching television] is easier to do, and you can watch TV when you’re tired as well. And you can also share it with other people . . . but it’s hard to read a book with another person.

There is pervasive evidence that reading is a ‘good thing’, regardless of educational, occupational, gender or age profile. As one participant said: I’d love to read more. The more you read, the more you learn, and the only way to learn is to read . . .You can learn anything out of a book, my cousin told me that.

Close affiliations are drawn between ‘good’ reading and ‘good’ readers and a strong link is drawn between reading ‘well’ and formal education. Being a ‘good reader’ is closely linked in the survey findings with being ‘well educated’. Reading is seen to be a valued practice regardless of educational, occupational, gender or age profile and there is a further belief that to be a book-reader means that you are also intelligent. The most pervasive theme throughout all interviews and surveys is that ‘reading is a good thing to do’.

Conclusion Reading books is increasingly fitted into the smaller, more fragmented chunks of time in between work, family and social lives. In addition, reading competes with a range of other leisure pastimes (particularly television) that are seen as ‘easier’. Perhaps because of the perceived ease of these other activities, reading is increasingly seen as a worthwhile thing to do and an activity signifying intelligence and education. One thing is certain. It is contemporary social values and practices that shape what we read, why we read, and the uses we make of our reading. NOTE ON SOURCES Marc Askew, ‘Reading the Australian Reading Public: Some Historical Considerations’, Books and Readers in Society, 1990, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University,

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pp. 129–41; Australia Council, Books: Who’s Reading Them Now? A Study of Book Buying and Borrowing in Australia, 1995; Sven Birkerts, The Gutenberg Elegies, London, Faber, 1994; Paul Brenec and Annette Stevens, The Reading and Buying of Books in Australia, Australia Council, 1978; P. Buckridge and J. Macleod, ‘The Reading Habits of Australian Professionals’, Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 17, no. 2, 1990, pp. 97–100; J. Macleod and P. Buckridge (eds), Books and Reading in Australian Society, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1992; John Docker, In a Critical Condition. Reading Australian Literature, Ringwood, Penguin, 1984; Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Harvard University Press, 1995; Laura Furman and Elinore Standard (eds), Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading, New York, 1997; Hans Guldberg, Books – Who Reads Them?, Australia Council, 1990; John Hooker, ‘Popular Culture – Publishing Fiction’, Social Alternatives, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 55–59, 1992; Ian Hunter, ‘Criticism as a Way of Life’, Typereader, Spring, pp. 5–20, 1990; A. Luke, ‘The Variability of Reading Practices’, in Books and Readers in Society, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1992, pp. 117–27; Martyn Lyons, ‘Texts, Books and Readers: Which Kind of Cultural History?’, Australian Cultural History, no. 11, 1992, pp. 1–15, and ‘The History of Reading and Reading Communities’, The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 1, 1997, pp. 6–15; Martyn Lyons and Lucy Taksa, Australian Readers Remember, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1992; Albert Moran, ‘Serious Authors: Notes Towards an Occupational Profile’, Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 17, no. 2, 1990, pp. 67–75.

Case-study: Public Libraries – Books, Bytes, Buildings, Brains ALAN BUNDY Before the Second World War there were as many as 2000 subscription libraries, Mechanics’ Institutes and Schools of Arts throughout Australia carrying mostly light fiction. Some masqueraded as public libraries and received small subsidies from local or state governments, although only about 3 per cent of the population used them. The watershed 1935 Munn–Pitt Report on libraries, funded by the Carnegie Corporation and sponsored by the Australian Council for Educational Research, provoked a storm of newspaper commentary around the country, and still makes fascinating reading. Libraries have never since attracted so much media attention. This was not surprising in view of the report’s scathing criticisms.‘Anyone wishing to carry away a favourable impression of the Public Library of Queensland,’ the report observed, ‘should never make the mistake of entering it . . .’ But this was no isolated case. As a whole, Australia

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‘was better provided with local libraries in the 1880s than it is today’, and the report concluded: ‘It is pathetic to observe the pride and complacency with which local committees exhibit wretched little institutes which have long since become cemeteries of old and forgotten books.’ There was general agreement with the Munn–Pitt Report, as well as parochial protest about its wording and the validity of its conclusions. The report did, however, greatly assist the cause of free libraries and stimulate political action based on a sharing of responsibility between state and local government. The very factors and attitudes which stalled the major development of Australian public libraries before Munn–Pitt are similar to those now facing Australian public libraries. Immediately after Munn–Pitt, the president of the Board of Governors of the South Australian Public Library, W. H. Langham, stated that, while his Board was in sympathy with the suggestion of free municipal libraries, ‘Other countries are now paying dearly for free libraries, which are meeting with much the same competition’. The competition he referred to was ‘the wireless’,‘modern enlarged newspapers and magazines’ and ‘the talkies with their never ending sessions’. As a result, ‘books have to take a second, third and fourth place where formerly they were the first’. This might seem a strange stance for a library board president to take, though it helps explain why most South Australians did not have a local public library until the 1970s. Had he been writing today, and not in 1937, Langham would have been able to add the Internet, on-line information and databases, CD ROMs, tapes and discs, video stores, freeto-air and cable television, computer games, electronic books, paperbacks, book superstores and amazon.com to his reasons for being circumspect about establishing and supporting free public libraries. Manifestly wrong in 1937, he would be equally wrong in 2037. His stance was certainly rejected by the next surveyor, after Munn–Pitt, of the Australian public library scene. Lionel McColvin, City Librarian of Westminster, in his 1946 survey sponsored by the British Council and the Australian Council for Educational Research, generally confirmed the Munn–Pitt conclusions. He gave particular emphasis to country library services and to school and children’s services. After Munn and Pitt had reported, all states passed library Acts, commencing with South Australia in 1939 and concluding with Western

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Australia in 1951. With the exception of South Australia, a focus of the Acts was the promotion of free public libraries by encouraging institutes to surrender their libraries to local authorities. In the wake of these changes, there has been great progress in Australia’s public library system. Over 98 per cent of Australians now have access to a public library – a remarkable achievement in just half a century. In 1948 only 14.9 per cent of the NSW population, or about one in seven, lived in local authority areas receiving a state library subsidy. The position was somewhat better in New South Wales than in the other states, however. In Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, free public libraries were almost nonexistent. Neither Queensland nor South Australia seriously tackled their lack of public libraries until as late as the 1970s. Australia has some public lending libraries which now match the best of those in the United States, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and New Zealand. It also has very few libraries as poor as some rural public libraries in the United States. The 1990s in Australia saw reduced library book acquisitions in most states, and per-capita funding of public libraries (currently a meagre 7 cents per Australian per day) still has a way to go before it reaches the levels of Scandinavian countries such as Finland, the world’s leading public library nation. In 1956 Lionel McColvin reported that Britain, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand had the best public libraries in the world. Australia was nowhere.Yet by most measures Australia would now rank within the world’s top ten public library nations, and close to the top in terms of servicing isolated populations. Book borrowing remains at a very high level and the many new spacious library buildings report increasing inlibrary use of them, consistent with Hugh Mackay’s description of them as the ‘new village green’. A 1998 Gallup poll by the American Library Association found that two out of three Americans were using the library, 13 per cent more than did twenty years ago, despite the proliferation of book and video stores, and home computers. In Australia, the national average for public library membership has risen to over 50 per cent, and 60 per cent of Australians – 12 million – use public libraries on a regular basis. One 1997 survey of public attitudes to the arts found that 95 per cent of Australians

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rate libraries as important or very important, and more than 90 per cent believe that libraries should be publicly funded.

Books, Bytes, Buildings, Brains In his 1948 book Libraries in Australia, Norman Lynravn asserted that the essence of libraries is ‘books, buildings, brains’, a list that would now read ‘books, bytes, buildings, brains’ but with the emphasis still firmly on the last element. Because of the numerical lack of ‘brains’, too many public libraries are currently limited to a passive role. There are, for example, public libraries in this country serving communities of 30 000 which employ only one librarian, and libraries serving several thousand people with no qualified staff at all. Too many are still poorly located, unattractive and very crowded, and between 2000 and 2007 over 250 new or replacement buildings are being constructed. Books will remain a highly useful technology well into this century, and despite the proliferation of other resources and services in public libraries, books remain their core business, about 80 per cent of it.A major difficulty currently facing many public libraries is that they are still not acquiring enough new bookstock. Public libraries will need to acquire more books, not less. These messages – about the need for books, bytes, buildings and brains – have not yet been conveyed with any informed persistence to local and state governments, and particularly those which conspicuously underfund their libraries. Better information to sustain the case for better funding of libraries is now becoming available; a very significant example in 2005 was a $250 000 research report Libraries Building Communities:The Vital Contribution of Victoria’s Public Libraries.

The challenge for local government There is overwhelming public support for public libraries and non-users place a very high option value on them. This support has yet to be translated into strong levels of funding by the various levels of government, and particularly by local government, much of which probably does not recognise itself as the significant educational provider that it is. Most local authorities contribute around only 5 per cent, and sometimes very

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considerably less, of their rates revenue to what is by far their most valued and heavily used community service – used typically by at least 60 per cent of people and available to all when the need arises. Across Australia there is great variation in local authority expenditure on libraries, ranging from about one-third of 1 per cent in Tasmania to over 7 per cent elsewhere. In England local authorities are now required to provide public libraries and report on them to the national government. In Australia thus far, public libraries ultimately are provided at the discretion of local government, with the major exception of Tasmania where since 1985 local authorities have been required to contribute a very modest amount to that state’s public library system. It is not difficult to identify and fault many local authorities and state governments in Australia – especially in New South Wales and Victoria – for their poor library funding. However, we must recognise that the fact that so few local authorities do not now provide a public library service represents a major mind and fiscal shift in a relatively short time.

Civic values and citizenship Despite outstanding progress in the last half century, we need to concern ourselves about improving public libraries for all Australians in this century. Public libraries cannot be complacent about current levels of access and service, particularly given the challenges presented by an ageing population and given the critical role of libraries in ‘Bookstart’ or ‘Books for babies’ literacy development programs. One of the major challenges is to ensure that all Australians, and particularly those who make decisions on their behalf, are aware of what constitutes a good modern public library service. Research suggests that public libraries are well used regardless of their quality, and that people often do not know what constitutes a good public library. They thus do not know when they are being denied one. Public libraries – as unique multifaceted ‘cradle to grave’ institutions – are worth a much better investment by all levels of government, but particularly local government. Conveying that message is a challenge for everyone, not just the few. It is a message about society and about the value of investing in the public good. It is ultimately a message about

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public libraries as a fundamental testbed for civic values and citizenship which provide a community with its sense of place. NOTE ON SOURCES R. Munn and E. Pitt, ‘Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for Their Improvement’, Melbourne, ACER, 1935; W. Langham, ‘Libraries in South Australia: A Reply to the Report Made by Dr A Grenfell Price CMG to the South Australian Government’, Adelaide, The Hassell Press, 1937; L. McColvin, ‘Public Libraries in Australia: Present Conditions and Future Possibilities with Notes on Other Library Services’, Melbourne, ACER/MUP, 1947; L. McColvin, ‘The Chance to Read: Public Libraries in the World Today’, London, Phoenix House, 1956; N. Lynravn, ‘Libraries in Australia’, Melbourne, Cheshire, 1948; ‘Libraries Building Communities: The Vital Contribution of Victoria’s Public Libraries’, Melbourne, State Library of Victoria, 2005.

Case-study:The Role of National and State Libraries CATHRINE HARBOE-REE Speaking at the conference Challenging Australian History: Discovering New Narratives at the National Library of Australia in August 2000, the Director-General, Jan Fullerton, quoted noted scholar and writer Pierre Ryckmans on the role of the library: ‘A National Library is a place where a nation nourishes its memory and exerts its imagination – where it connects with the past and invents its future.’ Public libraries, including national and state libraries, support publishing in a myriad of ways. The most obvious of these is the research material for writers and researchers provided in their collections. In the case of the major collecting institutions – the National Library and the various state libraries – these collections frequently provide unique source material, including manuscript and archival material, but they are also rich repositories of information in all areas of human endeavour.Where libraries do not hold relevant information or material in their own collections, they participate with libraries around the world in interlibrary loan programs. In a more abstract sense, but no less central to their purpose, public libraries support publishing by stimulating and nurturing the life of the mind: creating and strengthening reading habits in children from an early age, providing opportunities for personal creative development, stimulating the imagination, promoting awareness of social and cultural heritage,

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and providing access to cultural expression, especially as it is found in our documentary heritage. In the tradition established by Mechanics Institutes in the last century, public libraries endeavour to create ‘people’s universities’. This in turn supports publishing by helping to develop lifelong learners – readers, researchers and writers. Public libraries support Australian publishing in the concrete sense of acquiring their publications, whether book, serial, newspaper, CD-ROM or other. Over the past two decades there has been some dispute about whether or not this assists publishers or denies them sales to the general public. Libraries have been criticised for not acquiring sufficient copies of publications and also for reducing overall sales. The issue of supporting through acquisitions was tested by Monash University in 1988, when it was found that most public libraries positively discriminated in favour of Australian publications but could not be said to hold representative collections. This is not true of the major libraries, which hold exhaustive collections of Australian publications, frequently acquired through legal deposit. The Public Lending Right scheme is intended to compensate writers for possible lost sales as a result of libraries holding their material; however, it can be argued that libraries generate sales by promoting writers and writing, thereby assisting with the development of audiences. With the exception of the crucial significance of libraries’ collections, which in many cases provide invaluable complete lists and the only available copies, promotion is the most obvious way libraries support Australian publishing. All public libraries accept as their charter the need to promote reading. They do this through exhibitions, festivals, residencies, author talks, tours, conferences, creative writing tuition, children’s story-times, book clubs and the creation of bibliographies and indexes. Major libraries also actively collect writers’ archives and portraits of writers and employ writers for a range of activities. Major libraries are publishers in their own right, mostly, but not exclusively, from their own collections. Increasingly libraries are using new technologies to publish and to promote writing, reading and research. My own library – the State Library of Victoria (SLV) – has an active program of engagement with Australian publishing. SLV collects Victorian and Australian creative writing exhaustively, including all editions of works, translations and manuscript material. SLV creates exhibitions

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around the work of a writer or writers. For example, Ivan Southall’s fifty years of publishing for children and young adults was marked by an exhibition of his work, supported by a web version of the exhibition, including a bibliography and an audio video recording of him speaking about his work. SLV is host to the Australian Centre for Youth Literature, which runs an extensive promotion and advocacy program, and manages the Premier’s Literary Awards, which have been extended to incorporate a program of author talks at SLV and throughout Victorian public libraries. As part of a push to explore new technologies, performance poet and teacher Komninos Zervos was employed to create a ‘cyberpoetry’ site attached to the SLV website.The Cyberpoet site includes bibliographical information about Victorian poets, but Komninos also used the project to develop poets’ multimedia skills. SLV is a small publisher employing writers, historians, editors, designers and printers. It occasionally co-publishes, and increasingly is looking into its own collections to publish, in traditional formats but also digitally. It is currently preparing for two permanent exhibitions based on its collections: Beyond Words, a history of the book, and Views from the Dome, a history of Melbourne and Victoria, based, of course, on documentary heritage, published and unpublished. Beyond Words will include several examples of the complete works of a writer, including multiple manuscript drafts of works eventually published. In a world of massive production of published material, libraries continue to play the role of collectors, archivists, mediators and navigators. They synthesise material from a wide range of sources.They are comprehensive, authoritative, impartial and accessible. They lead people to the material they are seeking, regardless of format, and train them to become independent learners. They have a symbiotic relationship with writers, publishers and booksellers, not only helping to develop the market but also championing the causes of free speech and the pursuit of knowledge. Or, as Irving Benson said of the then Public Library of Victoria:‘Its doors are invitingly open for free use on equal terms to the whole community.’ Such wide and unfettered access allowed readers ‘pleasures of great literature, but also to understand the social, religious and economic forces in an everchanging world.’

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NOTE ON SOURCES Jan Fullerton, ‘The Research Adventure’, National Library of Australia News, August 2000, pp. 15–17; Margaret Isaacs, Libraries and Australian Literature: A Report on the Representation of Creative Writing in Australian Libraries, Melbourne, Ancora Press, 1988; Irving C. Benson, The Public Library of Victoria, 1856–1956, Melbourne, Public Library of Victoria, 1956.

Notes on Contributors John Arnold is a senior lecturer with the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. He has worked in the second-hand book trade and as a reference librarian. His publications include The Imagined City: Melbourne in the Mind of Its Writers (1983), Satyrs, Fauns and Ladies: A History and Bibliography of the Fanfrolico Press (2006) and, as co-editor, The Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia (1994). He is also co-editor of the Bibliography of Australian Literature (A–E, 2001; F–J, 2004) and, with Martyn Lyons, of A History of the Book in Australia 1891–1945 (2001). Ron Blaber teaches in the Department of Communication and Cultural Studies at Curtin University. His background is in Australian Literary Studies, Postcolonial Studies and Cultural Studies. His current research and teaching interests focus on community and citizen formation inflected through the idea of ‘post-civil’ society. Gregory Blaxell left Jacaranda Press in 1972 and took up a career as a writer, specialising in writing school language materials, before lecturing at the St George Institute of Education and then at the Australian Catholic University. In 1992 he went back to full-time writing and wrote several language books, including the Primary Grammar Handbook. In 2004 he wrote The River: Sydney Cove to Parramatta. Tess Brady is co-author with Donna Lee Brien of The Girls’ Guide to Real Estate (2002) and The Girl’s Guide to Work and Life (2004). She is coeditor with Nigel Krauth of TEXT, the Australian Association of Writing

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Programs’ electronic journal, and also has a family business. She has been a lecturer at Griffith University and a number of other tertiary institutions, and is now a freelance writer, academic and businesswoman. Katharine Brisbane co-founded Currency Press in 1971 and thirty years later founded Currency House Inc., a non-profit association promoting the value of the performing arts in public life. She was a theatre critic of twenty-one years, including a stint as national critic for the Australian (1967–74), and has written widely on the history of Australian theatre. Her book Not Wrong Just Different: Observations on the Rise of the Contemporary Australian Theatre was published in 2005. Diane Brown is a Melbourne-based freelance editor, scholarly writer and researcher. She is an honorary research associate with the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University. She holds a Graduate Diploma (Editing and Publishing) and a PhD (Arts/Publishing). She is an active member of the Society of Editors (Victoria) and the founder and convenor of the Victorian Working Group for the Occasional Series on Australian Editors (OSAE). Patrick Buckridge was born and educated in Brisbane, received his doctorate in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and is associate professor and head of the School of Arts, Griffith University. He has published in the areas of biography, literary criticism and cultural history, and on the history of reading in Australia. Alan Bundy was foundation university librarian and director of the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library of the University of South Australia 1992–2005. His experience includes senior positions in public and academic libraries in three Australian states, and he has consulted widely in Australia and overseas. He is founder and editorial director of Auslib Press, Australia’s largest publisher of library and information science, and edits the quarterly journal Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services (APLIS) which he initiated in 1988. During 1988 and again in 2002 he was national president of the Australian Library and Information Association, and in April 1998 was awarded the HCL Anderson Award of the Association, its premier professional award. He became president of Friends of Libraries Australia (FOLA) and was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005. Susan Butler is the editor of the Macquarie Dictionary.

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David Carter is director of the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Queensland. His publications include A Career in Writing: Judah Waten and the Cultural Politics of a Literary Career. Laurel Clark is a librarian with a special interest in Australian book trade history. She has an MA in Bibliographical and Textual Studies from Monash University, her most recent work being a monograph on the nineteenth-century Australian publisher F. F. Bailliere. John Collins taught in schools and universities before becoming an author, publisher and critic. Managing director of Jacaranda Press and Jacaranda Wiley from 1974 to 1993, he was appointed a vice-president of John Wiley & Sons Inc. of New York in 1990. He was on the executive of the ABPA, chairing the Education Committee, and was vice-president 1981–82. He was chair of Brisbane Writers’ Week in 1995, deputy chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council 1997–99 and a member of the Asialink Literature Committee. Jane Covernton worked for Rigby Books before founding Omnibus Books and later Working Title Press, both with Sue Williams. She now runs Working Title P ress independently. Denis Cryle has published widely on the Australian print media, including several books on colonial journalism. Most recently, he co-edited Consent and Consensus. Politics, Media and Governance in Twentieth-century Australia with Professor Jean Hillier (2005). He is currently researching the print media in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australia and New Zealand as a recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2004–6). He is professor in the Faculty of Informatics and Communication at Central Queensland University. David Cunningham joined OUP in 1964 after graduating in history from Cambridge University, and was sent to India for training. He was manager of Oxford’s Australian branch from 1976 to 1985 which included responsibility for New Zealand as well as Australia from 1981. From 1986 he managed his own business, Hospitality Press, until his retirement. John Currey was co-founder of Currey O’Neil and previously worked for Lansdowne Press. John Curtain (1939–99) was a member of the founding committee for the History of the Book in Australia project. After an early career as a

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teacher, he became publishing manager at Cheshire Publishing, manager at Lansdowne Press, then worked with Richmond Hill Press, and with Penguin Books Australia from 1984. In 1991 he joined RMIT to run the Graduate Diploma in Publishing and Editing where he later became an associate professor. He founded and edited the book history journal Publishing Studies. Ingrid Day is dean of Teaching, Learning and International Studies in the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of South Australia. Josie Douglas is of Wardaman descent, her country being south-west of Katherine in the Northern Territory. She commissioned the anthology Message Stick: Contemporary Aboriginal Writing and, with Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, compiled the international anthology of Indigenous writing Skins – Contemporary Indigenous Writing, both for IAD Press. She has been involved in Indigenous publishing for ten years, and has worked on a wide range of fiction, non-fiction and academic titles. Until recently she was publisher at IAD Press in Alice Springs and is now Indigenous Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University. Don Drummond, after teaching and lecturing, worked in educational publishing as publisher at Cheshire, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Horwitz Martin. He has been associated with many major educational publishing projects. With his partner, Sheila Drummond, he founded (and for twenty years published) the magazine Primary Education and associated titles under the independent Primary Education and Drummond imprints. He served at various times on the ABPA executive and was an active member of its educational publishing committee, serving also on the Board of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Paul Eggert is director of the Australian Scholarly Editions Centre at the University of New South Wales at ADFA in Canberra where he is a professor. He is general editor of the Academy Editions of Australian Literature, for which he co-edited The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn (UQP, 1996) and Robbery Under Arms (UQP, 2006). He has published widely in the area of editorial theory and co-edited The Editorial Gaze (Garland, 1998). George Ferguson was a bookseller, editor, publisher and managing director of Angus & Robertson, in a career stretching over almost

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half a century. His grandfather, George Robertson, had established the bookselling and publishing empire in the late nineteenth century. George Ferguson initially worked in the bookshop, becoming Publisher in 1948, before leaving the ‘old firm’ in 1971 after Gordon Barton’s takeover. He died in 1998. Anne Galligan completed her Masters and PhD at the University of Southern Queensland, and is now a recipient of a three-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Queensland. She has published widely on publishing technology and libraries. Diana Giese has worked in publishing in London and Sydney for publishers large and small, including Macmillan, Oxford University Press, HarperCollins and Pandanus Books. She is the author of five books, including Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons (UQP, 1997), and also edits, assesses and promotes books. Stuart Glover is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. Previously he lectured in writing and publishing in QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty. He was also manager for writing and publishing at Arts Queensland, founding director of the Brisbane Writers Festival and inaugural director of QPIX: Queensland Screen Resource Centre. In 2002 he co-edited Hot Iron Corrugated Sky: A Century of Queensland Writing with Robyn Sheahan-Bright. Diana Gribble was co-founder of McPhee Gribble, and helped start Text Media. She also served for five years on the board of the ABC, and is currently a director of Lonely Planet and of CARE Australia. Bridget Griffen-Foley is the author of The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire (Allen & Unwin, 1999) and Sir Frank Packer (HarperCollins, 2000). She is now an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the departments of Modern History and Politics at Macquarie University. Cathrine Harboe-Ree is university librarian, Monash University, and was formerly Director, Collections and Services, State Library of Victoria. Jim Hart began his book publishing career as an editor before becoming a partner in Lonely Planet Publications, where he stayed until the late 1990s. During that time he was active in a number of industry bodies, including the ABPA and its export committee. He later became joint

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coordinator of RMIT’s Graduate Diploma in Editing and Publishing, and now consults in specialist publishing areas. Susan Hawthorne co-founded Spinifex Press with Renate Klein where they are both publishers. Prior to starting Spinifex, she was a commissioning editor at Penguin Books Australia. She has worked in publishing and related fields for more than twenty years as a reviewer, writer, radio presenter and literary festival organiser. She is the author of five books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction and has edited or coedited ten anthologies. Her books include The Falling Woman (novel, 1992), Wild Politics (non-fiction, 2002) and The Butterfly Effect (poetry, 2005). Emma Hegarty teaches in the Monash Asia Institute and her MA research was on bestsellers in Australia. She has a variety of experience and qualifications relevant to the publishing industry and is currently publisher at the Monash Asia Institute Press, and a member of the Ancora Press, a hand-set printing chapel. Terry Herbert founded Bookworld in Toowoomba and is a director of Hinkler Books. Neil James is director of the Plain English Foundation and wrote his PhD thesis on Angus & Robertson. He has worked for Halstead Press, SBS and the NSW Arts Ministry. Jacqueline Kent has freelanced for most major Australian publishers, and in 1994 was awarded the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship. She has set up and run editing courses, taught communications, and lectured in fiction editing. She has written young adult fiction and non-fiction. A Certain Style, her biography of Beatrice Davis (Penguin Books, 2001) was the 2002 winner of the National Biography Award and the Nita B. Kibble Literary Award. She is writing a biography of the musician and social activist Hephzibah Menuhin. Barbara Ker Wilson began her distinguished career in London in 1949 with OUP and then worked at The Bodley Head and William Collins before moving to Australia. She developed A&R’s children’s books list (1964–73) and then established the Hodder Australia children’s list, and from 1977 to 1984 was managing editor of Condensed Books for Reader’s Digest in Australia and New Zealand. In 1985 she began UQP’s Young Adult fiction list. Since 1995 she has worked as a freelance editor

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and writer. She has written many books for adults and children. She received the APBA’s Pixie O’Harris Award in 1997 and the Dromkeen Medal in 2000, and was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2004. John McLaren is emeritus professor in the Faculty of Arts, Victoria University, Melbourne. He has been editor of Overland and the Australian Book Review, and edited A Nation Apart, a 1982 collection of essays on Australian culture and society dedicated to the memory of Andrew Fabinyi. His own first book, Our Troubled Schools (1968), was published by Fabinyi at Cheshire. Kath McLean lives in Tasmania, has a doctorate in Australian Studies and has a keen interest in the history of Australian publishing and related government policy. She is an honorary research associate in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University and works in the community services sector as a policy officer. Mark Macleod was a lecturer who regularly reviewed children’s books on national television, before establishing two eponymous imprints, first at Random House and then with Hodder Headline during the 1990s. An editor, lecturer and critic, he is national president of the CBC. Hilary McPhee was co-founder with Diana Gribble of McPhee Gribble in 1975. After Penguin Books Australia acquired the company’s assets at the end of 1989, she remained with the imprint as publisher for two years before joining Pan Macmillan. From 1994 to 1997 she was chair of the Australia Council and the Major Organisations Board and is now Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Other P eople’s Words (2001) is the memoir of her publishing career. Brigid Magner wrote her doctoral thesis on trans-Tasman literary culture. She currently teaches in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University. Anthony May teaches in the School of Arts, Media and Culture at Griffith University. Guy Mirabella, one of Australia’s leading designers, won the Joyce Thorpe Nicholson Award for the Best Designed Book of the Year in 2000 for The Nature of Gardens by Peter Timms. He lives outside Melbourne. Ian Morrison is a senior librarian in Heritage Collections at the State

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Library of Tasmania and formerly worked as curator of Australiana, Archives and Special Collections at the University of Melbourne. Robin Morrow was co-founder with Beryl Matthews of the Children’s Bookshop at Beecroft in 1971. As freelance lecturer, critic and editor in children’s literature, she has published a number of children’s anthologies. Her PhD was on the concept of nostalgia in Australian picture books. She has been awarded the Pixie O’Harris Award, the John Hirst Award for Services to School Libraries, and the Lady Cutler Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Literature. Marcie Muir pioneered bibliographical research in children’s literature with Australian Children’s Books: A Bibliography Volume One 1774–1972 (1992) and A History of Australian Children’s Book Illustration (1982). She has also published A History of Wakefield Press (1993) and other publications. She was the inaugural recipient of the CBC’s Nan Chauncy Award. Craig Munro is the author of the award-winning biography Wild Man of Letters:The Story of P. R. Stephensen (1984). He was UQP fiction editor (1973–80) and then publishing manager (1983–2000) and edited a history of UQP, The Writer’s Press, in 1998. He won the Barbara Ramsden Award for Editing in 1985 and studied book publishing in Canada and the United States on a Churchill Fellowship in 1991. He has been an adviser to the Literature Board of the Australia Council and was the founding chair of the Queensland Writers Centre. Simone Murray is a lecturer in the School of English, Communications & Performance Studies at Monash University, having completed an ARC-funded postdoctoral investigation of the multi-platforming of media content. She is the author of the first critical monograph analysing gender politics and the contemporary book publishing industry, Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics (2004). Sonia Mycak is an ARC research fellow in the English Department at the University of Sydney, focusing on the multicultural literatures of Australia and Canada, and culturally and linguistically diverse writing communities. She is author of Canuke Literature: Critical Essays on Canadian Ukrainian Writing (2001) and edited I’m Ukrainian, Mate! New Australian Generation of Poets (2000) and (with Chris Baker) Australian Mosaic: An Anthology of Multicultural Writing (1997).

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Joyce Thorpe Nicholson worked in the book trade for fifty-six years. Her father, Daniel Wrixon Thorpe, was the founder of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd (in 1921) and she took over the company in 1968, having already established herself as a writer of books and book trade articles. She was awarded an AM for services to writing and the book publishing industry in 1983, and the Lloyd O’Neil Award in 1998. She published A Life of Books:The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd 1921–1987 in 2000. John Nieman was born 1943 in Bendigo and has been an avid reader since childhood. He can handset type and has worked in the printing industry all his life, with various forays into youth work, editing, newspaper ownership, factory work and management, chimney cleaning and journalism. With his partner he now runs Newsletters Unlimited, a small publishing house from Monbulk,Victoria. Roger Osborne is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian Studies Centre, University of Queensland. He has published in the areas of textual criticism, editorial theory and print culture. He is currently investigating Australian magazine culture in the 1920s. Michael Page was for many years publishing manager at Rigby. He has published a number of books, several with acclaimed illustrator Robert Ingpen, including Out of This World: The Complete Book of Fantasy (1986). Louise Poland is co-editor of the Journal of Publishing, manager of the Pu-R-L e-list for researchers working on books and publishing, and a part-time lecturer in Monash University’s postgraduate editing and publishing program. She has worked in book publishing and wrote an MA thesis, ‘Out of Type:Women in Publishing in Australia (1931–73)’, as well as a PhD thesis, ‘Setting the Agenda: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics in Australia (1974–2003)’, both at Monash University. Morry Schwartz was co-founder of Outback Press and is currently both a property developer and the publisher of Black Inc. which publishes Quarterly Essay, Monthly and Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Poetry and Best Australian Short Stories. Robert Sessions is publishing director, Penguin Group Australia, and has spent forty years in the Australian book trade. His work in encouraging award-winning children’s authors such as Graeme Base has been widely acknowledged.

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Thomas Shapcott, poet, novelist, teacher and critic, has been a leading figure in Australian writing for decades. Most recently he has been professor in Creative Writing at Adelaide University. He wrote The Literature Board: A Brief History (1988) while a director of the Board, and has also been the director of the National Book Council. Robyn Sheahan-Bright operates Justified Text Writing and Publishing Consultancy, and publishes regularly on children’s literature, Australian fiction and publishing history. She was the inaugural director of the Queensland Writers Centre, and of Jam Roll Press. She co-edited Hot Iron Corrugated Sky: A Century of Queensland Writing (2002), with Stuart Glover, and her PhD thesis was on the development of the Australian children’s publishing industry. She teaches for Griffith University (Gold Coast) and the University of Southern Queensland. Ruth Starke is a widely published writer of fiction for children. She teaches at Flinders University where she was appointed a writer-inresidence in the Department of English in 2005 for a two-year term. She also teaches creative writing at AIT, and an offshore BA/MA course for UniSA. She wrote her PhD on the history and influence of the Adelaide Writers Week and has published Writers, Readers and Rebels: Upfront and Backstage at Australia’s Top Literary Festival (1998). Frank Thompson was born and raised in Los Angeles and educated at Michigan State University where he worked for the university press before moving to Australia. He was A&R’s production manager and then Prentice Hall’s first tertiary rep before becoming UQP’s manager in 1961. After twenty-two years he left to become general manager of Rigby in Adelaide and was then publishing manager for the Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra. He joined the Australian Government Publishing Service as director of publishing and marketing, retiring in 1993 to become a publishing consultant. In 1994 he was made an honorary life member of the ABPA, having been president in 1971–72 and a member of its Board for fifteen years. Albert Ullin was founder of The Little Bookroom, Australia’s first specialist children’s bookshop. He was honoured in the 1997 Australia Day Honours for service to the promotion of children’s literature, won the 1986 Dromkeen Medal and is a life member of the CBC’s Victorian Branch of which he is also a past president. He is on the

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committee of the Dromkeen Society and co-ordinates the mentorship program for the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust. Richard Walsh was founding editor of Oz magazine and the weekly newspaper Nation Review. From 1972 to 1986 he was managing director of Angus & Robertson and then headed Australian Consolidated Press (1986–96). Until 1998 he was a director of Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd. He is a former director of the public companies Cinema Plus Ltd and Text Media Ltd. He is now a media consultant, part-time lecturer, director of HWW Ltd, and consultant publisher at Allen & Unwin. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of itechne, a division of Techne-Ventures, and the author of Executive Material (2002). He holds degrees in Arts and Medicine from the University of Sydney. Michael Webster was managing director of DW Thorpe from 1981 to 1997, and oversaw the introduction of Nielsen BookScan into Australia in the late 1990s, a business with which he remains connected. As well as researching the book industry through his private consultancy, he runs the Graduate Program in Publishing Studies at RMIT University. Tony Wheeler co-founded Lonely Planet with his wife Maureen. He wrote his first guidebook, Across Asia on the Cheap, in 1972 and has since written and contributed to over twenty Lonely Planet guides. He won the Outstanding Contribution to Travel Journalism Award at the Travelex Travel Writers Awards for 2000 and was awarded the British Guild of Travel Writers Life-time Achievement Award in 2002. Kerry White is a bibliographer, writer and reviewer. She is the author of Australian Children’s Books: A Bibliography (1992 and 2004), Australian Children’s Fiction: The Subject Guide (1993 and 1996), and is the major contributor to The Source, a web-based guide to children’s books and poetry. She has a PhD from the University of Wollongong, where she has also tutored and lectured in Australian literature and children’s books. She has been a judge for the CBC awards, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the Taronga Foundation poetry prize. Leanne Wiseman is associate director of the Australian Centre for Intellectual Property in Agriculture and an associate professor in Law at Griffith University. She has also been a senior lecturer in Law at

Notes on Contributors

393

QUT and has worked as a solicitor. Her primary research interests lie in the field of intellectual property law and her publications are in intellectual property and contract law. She has served as an executive member of the Intellectual Property Society of Australia and New Zealand, and remains a member of the Intellectual Property Committee of the Law Council of Australia, and is also involved with the Arts Law Centre of Queensland. Michael Zifcak has had a distinguished bookselling and publishing career, most notably with Collins Booksellers. In 1973 he became founding chairman of the National Book Council and he was also a foundation member of the Australian Library Promotion Council and served on the Literature Board. In 1965 he joined the International Booksellers Federation (IBF) and was appointed IBF representative for Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, becoming IBF president in 1981. In the same year he was honoured with an Order of the British Empire by the British government. He chaired the planning committee of UNESCO regional seminars on Book Development in the Western Pacific three times and was vice-chairman of the 1982 World Congress of Books in London. From 1989 to 1998 he was chairman of UNESCO’s International Book Committee. In his adopted country, the Australian book trade honoured him in 1992 with the inaugural Lloyd O’Neil Award for services to the Australian book industry. His achievements are documented in an article published by Logos, the journal of the World Book Community (vol. 13, no. 1, 2002).

Illustrations Acknowledgment is made to Penguin Books Australia for the photograph of their warehouse in 1946 (from Geoffrey Dutton, A Rare Bird: Penguin Books in Australia 1946–96, 1996) and for the photograph of Beatrice Davis (from Jacqueline Kent, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis – A Literary Life, 2001); to Joyce Nicholson for photographs of the 1949 ABPA dinner, Sam Ure Smith, Andrew Fabinyi, Frank Eyre, Brian Clouston, Lloyd O’Neil, Katharine Brisbane, the 1973 NBC committee and the Lonely Planet staff (from Joyce Thorpe Nicholson and Daniel Wrixon Thorpe, A Life of Books: The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd 1921–1987, 2000); to Ponch Hawkes for her photograph of Hilary McPhee and Diana Gribble; to Michael Zifcak for photographs of Frank and Jean Cheshire, and Patsy Adam Smith; to the Imprint Literary Calendar (1990) for the photograph of George Johnston and Charmian Clift; to Michael Leunig and Richard Walsh for the pages from the Sunday Review and Nation Review; to Morry Schwartz for the photographs of Outback Press; to Hale & Iremonger and the Australian Literary Calendar (1986) for photographs of Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), Frank Moorhouse and Kate Grenville; to John Collins for the photograph of the 1983 John Wiley party; to the Toowoomba Chronicle for the photograph of the Puffin Club members; to Alwyn Kucks for the photograph of David Cox; to the Gympie Times for the photograph of Gregory Rogers and Robyn SheahanBright; to UQP and Barry Anderson for the photograph of Herb Wharton; to UQP and Craig Voevodin for the photograph of Peter Carey; and to Robyn Sheahan-Bright for her photograph of the 1999 REP group.

Further Reading This is a select list of sources for further reading and research. The growth of recent research on Australian publishing is reflected in a listing of theses and archival sources at the end. Abbreviations A&U A&R ABPA ABA ABS ACER AGPS ALIA ANU Press APA CBC MUP NLA NSW OUP PSA SA UNSW UQP WA

Allen & Unwin Angus & Robertson Australian Book Publishers Association (later APA) Australian Booksellers Association Australian Bureau of Statistics Australian Council for Educational Research Australian Government Publishing Service Australian Library and Information Association Australian National University Press Australian Publishers Association Children’s Book Council of Australia Melbourne University Press National Library of Australia New S outh Wales Oxford University Press Prices Surveillance Authority South Australia University of New South Wales University of Queensland Press Western Australia

396

Further Reading

Publishing and bookselling Abbey, Ron (ed.), Golden Age of Booksellers: Fifty Years in the Trade, Sydney, Abbey Press, 1981. Ad Rem: The Australian Book Industry – Challenges and Opportunities, Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Infrastructure and Industry Growth Fund, 2001. Ahearne, Kate, ‘Good Culture and Good Business’, Australian Society, June 1987. Arnold, John, ‘Cultivating the Armchair Reader: The Circulating Library Movement in Melbourne 1930–1960’, Australian Cultural History, vol. 11, 1992, pp. 67–79. Australian Book Publishers Association, Book Publishing in Australia: A Policy for the Future: A Submission, April 1982, Sydney, ABPA, 1982. Australian Bookseller & Publisher (1971– ), Melbourne, DW Thorpe [superseded Ideas for Stationers, Booksellers, Newsagents, Libraries, Fancy Goods (1940–55); Ideas (1956–1970)]. Australian Book Trade Working Party, Report, Richmond,Vic., ABA and APA, 1975. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book Australia 2001, no. 83, cat. no. 1301.0, Canberra, ABS, 2001. ——, Book Publishers 2000–2001, cat. no. 1363.0, Canberra, ABS, 2002. ——, Book Publishers 2002–2003, cat. no. 1363.0, Canberra, ABS, 2004. Australian Commission for the Future Limited, The Australian Book Publishing Industry: A Report to DASET December 1992, Carlton,Vic., ACF, 1992. Banks, Phil, Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935–2005, Penguin, 2005 (Penguin 70th anniversary). Barker, Anthony, One of the First and One of the Finest: Beatrice Davis, Book Editor, Carlton, Society of Editors (Vic.), 1991. Barker, D. H., Australian Book Publishing, Melbourne, 1970. Bolton, Alec, ‘Publishing in an Age of Innocence: A&R in the 1950s’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 12–20. The Book under Challenge: Australian UNESCO Seminar, NLA, November 1972, Canberra, AGPS, 1973. Borchardt, D. H. and W. Kirsop, eds, The Book in Australia: Essays Towards a Cultural and Social History, Melbourne, Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, 1988. Branson, Vern, ‘Rigby Remembered’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, October 1986, pp. 38–41. Bristow, Kylee, ‘Distribution – The Fatal Flaw?’, Publishing Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp. 36–44. Brown, Diane, ‘Feminist Publishing in Australia: Sisters Publishing 1979–83’, Publishing Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp. 7–11. Burn, Jenny and Mark Tredinnick, ‘Knowledge Is Power: The Case for Consumer Research in Book Publishing’, Australian Library Journal, vol. 43, no. 2, May 1994, pp. 81–103.

Further Reading

397

‘A Century of Hutchinson 1887–1987’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 67, no. 976, October 1987, pp. 32–33. Cheshire, F. W., Bookseller, Publisher, Friend, Melbourne, National Press, 1984. Clark, Laurel, A Touch of Montparnasse: Three Avant Garde Cultural Centres in Victoria – The Book Lovers,The Leonardo and The Book Nook, Canberra, Mulini Press, 1994. Cleary, James, ‘Australian Publishing and Book Importation 1939–1945’, in W. Boyd Rayward, ed., Australian Library History in Context, Sydney, University of NSW School of Librarianship, 1988, pp. 99–108. Close, Cecily, ‘Melbourne Publishing from Depression to War’, in W. Boyd Rayward, ed., Libraries and Life in a Changing World: The Metcalfe Years 1920–1970, Sydney, School of Information, Library and Archive Studies, UNSW, 1993. ——, ‘The House of Lothian: Nineteenth Century Beginnings’, in Elizabeth Morrison and Michael Talbot, eds, Books, Libraries and Readers: Papers from the Forum on Australian Colonial Library History held at Monash University 1–2 June 1984, Clayton,Vic., Graduate School of Librarianship, Monash University, 1985, pp. 76–82. Coffey, Ray, ‘Local Publishing at Its Best’, ARLIS/ANZ News, vol. 32, no. 3, October– December 1990, pp. 4–10. ——, ‘Metamorphosis: From Manuscript to Book’, Australian Author, Summer 1991, pp. 23–26. Cope, Bill and Dean Mason, eds, Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age: Australian Book Production i n Transition, Altona,Vic., Common Ground Publishing, 2001. Crocombe, Angela, ‘Allen & Unwin – A Short History’, Publishing Studies, no. 5, Spring 1997, pp. 42–46. Cryle, Denis, ‘Culture and Commerce: Gordon & Gotch Ltd in Australasia 1890–1940’, Publishing Studies, no. 3, Spring 1996, pp. 44–49. Cultural Trends in Australia Nos 5 & 9, Australian Book Publishing 1995–96 and 1997–98, Canberra, Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts and the ABS, 1997 and 1999. Cunningham, David, ‘OUP: The Development of an Australian List 1975–85’, Publishing Studies, no. 3, Spring 1996, pp. 7–22. Currey, John, The Australian Publishing of Lloyd O’Neil: A Celebration of Thirty Years, Friends of the NLA, 1991. Curtain, Eleanor, ‘A Tribute to the Life and Work of John Curtain’, Publishing Studies, no. 7, Autumn 1999, pp. 3–5. Curtain, John, ‘Book Publishing’, in Stuart Cunningham and Graeme Turner, eds, The Media in Australia: Industries,Texts, Audiences, Sydney, A&U, 1993, pp. 102–18. ——, ‘Distance Makes the Market Fonder: The Development of Book Publishing in Australia’, Media Culture and Society, vol. 15, no. 2, April 1993, pp. 233–44. ——, ‘How Australian Publishing Won Its Way Against the Odds’, LOGOS, vol. 3, 1998, pp. 141–46. ——, ‘75 Years Young! A History of the Australian Book Trade’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 76, no. 1071, July 1996, pp. 38–44.

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Further Reading

——, ‘Takeovers, Entertainment, Information and the Book’, Media Information Australia, vol. 68, May 1993, pp. 43–48. Denholm, Michael, Small Press Publishing in Australia: The Early 1970s, Sydney, Second Back Row Press, 1979, and The Late 1970s to Mid to Late 1980s, Melbourne, Footprint, 1991. ——, ‘Book Distribution in Australia: The Problem and Its Solution’, Australian Book Review, February–March 1984, pp. 27–28. Dandos, Clare, ‘Lothian Books: A Dynasty Destined to Publish and Prosper’, Times on Sunday, 21 February 1988, p. 32. Dowse, Sara, Export Opportunities in Asia for Australian Publishing: Report of the Publishing Industry Development and Export Project (PIDE), Canberra, Department of Commerce and AGPS, 1994. Dugan, Michael, ‘From Bookstall to Boom: Paperback Publishing in Australia’, Australian Book Review, vol. 79, April 1986, pp. 34–35. Dutton, Geoffrey, A Rare Bird: Penguin Books in Australia 1946–96, Ringwood, Penguin, 1996. ——, Out in the Open, St Lucia, UQP, 1996. Eggert, Paul, ed., Editing in Australia, Canberra, ADFA, 1990. Engel, Kevin, Bookselling in Australia, Canberra, Acorn Press, 1986. Epstein, Jason, Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future, New York, Norton, 2001. Eyre, Frank, ‘Australian Books and International Standards’, Australian Book Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 1 November 1963, pp. 17–20. ——, Oxford in Australia 1890–1978, Melbourne, OUP, 1978. ——, ‘Oxford University Press and Children’s Books’, School Library Journal, October 1978, pp. 107–11. Fabinyi, Andrew, ‘The Australian Book’, in Clement Semmler and Derek Whitelock, eds, Literary Australia, Melbourne, FW Cheshire, 1966. ——,‘Educational Publishing in Australia’, Australian Book Review, supplement, July 1969, pp. 200–5. ——, Interview with the author, Hazel De Berg, Tape 742, Canberra, NLA, 1974. ——, ‘A Publisher’s Philosophy’, Australian Book Review, vol. 4, no. 7, May 1965, pp. 123–24. Farmer, Geoffrey, The Literature of Australian Private Presses and Fine Printing: A Bibliography, Sydney, Book Collectors Society, 1986. ——, Private Presses and Australia, Melbourne, Hawthorn Press, 1972. ——, Private Presses and Australia: A First Supplement, Hobart, G. Farmer, 1976. Ferguson, George and Andrew Fabinyi, ‘Publishing in Australia’, Australian Book Review, vol. 9, no. 6, April 1970, pp. 145–47. Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCleery, The Book History Reader, London, Routledge, 2002. Fitzgerald, Criena, A Press in Isolation: University of Western Australia Press 1935–2004, Perth, UWAP, 2005.

Further Reading

399

Flower, Desmond, ‘Cassell Australia’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 64, no. 943, October 1984, pp. 56–58. Forbes, Sandra, ‘Angus & Robertson Centenary’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 66, no. 966, November 1986, pp. 26–27. Friend,Tad,‘[Tony Wheeler] – He’s Been Everywhere, Man’, Age Good Weekend magazine, 13 August 2005, pp. 20–25. Galligan, Anne, ‘Living in the Marketplace’, Publishing Studies, no. 7, Autumn 1999, pp. 36–44. Georgian House:The First Two Years 1944–1945, Melbourne, Georgian House, 1945. Giese, Diana, ‘The Real Work’, Voices, vol. 4, no. 1, Autumn 1994, pp. 87–102. ——, ‘From the Kimberley to the World of Magabala Books’, NLA News, July 2002, pp. 19–21. ——, Interview with Diana Gribble, Australian Publishing Oral History Project, NLA, ORAL TRC 3425, 1996. Gordon & Gotch, Years to Remember: The Story of Gordon & Gotch, Gordon & Gotch Australasia Limited, 1953. Graetz, Joyce, An Open Book: The Story of the Distribution and Production of Christian Literature by Lutherans in Australia, Adelaide, Lutheran Publishing House, 1988. Harper, Sally, ‘Angus & Robertson’s Involvement with the Children’s Book Scene’, Orana, vol. 24, no. 4, November 1988, pp. 191–96. Harvey, Ross and Ross Somerville,‘Australian–New Zealand Connections after 1945: Or, Reedkoala: An Adventure in Australian Publishing’, Publishing Studies, no. 6, Autumn 1998, pp. 72–78. Heiss, Anita, Dhuuluu-Yala (To Talk Straight): Publishing Indigenous Literature, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press, 2003. Hely, Susan, ‘The Unfunny End of Kids’ Stuff ’, Australian Author, vol. 30, no. 2, August– November 1998, pp. 19–25. Holroyd, John and Joyce Nicholson, ‘Australian Book Publishers Association’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 60, no. 903, March 1981, pp. 64–74. Hooker, John, ‘Popular Culture – Publishing Fiction’, Social Alternatives, vol. 11, no. 1, 1992, pp. 55–59. Industries Assistance Commission, The Publishing Industry, 17 October 1979, Canberra, AGPS. Industry Commission, Book Production, 15 October 1992, Canberra, AGPS. ——, Book Printing, Canberra, AGPS, 1996. Inquiry into Book Prices, Final Report No. 25, December 1989, Sydney, PSA. Inquiry into Book Prices and Parallel Imports, Report No. 61, 28 April 1995, Melbourne, PSA. Irving, Erica, The Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship, 1999: A Report to the Literature Board of the Australia Council and the Australian Book Publishers Association. James, Neil, ‘Basically We Thought About Books – An Interview with George Ferguson’, Publishing Studies, no. 5, 1997, pp. 8–16.

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Further Reading

——, ‘A Candid Report: The Australian Book Design Awards’, Publishing Studies, no. 7, 1999, pp. 52–57. ——, ‘“The Fountainhead”: George Ferguson and A&R’, Publishing Studies, no. 7, 1999, pp. 6–16. Jarabak, Charlotte, UNSW Press: A Bibliography 1962–2002, Sydney, UNSW Press, 2002. Jefferis, Barbara, The Good, the Bad and the Greedy: How Australian Publishers Are Rated by Their Authors, Sydney, Australian Society of Authors, 1989. Johanson, Graeme, A Study of Colonial Editions in Australia, 1843–1972, Wellington, Elibank Press, 2000. Kent, Jacqueline, A Certain Style: Beatrice Davis – A Literary Life, Melbourne, Viking, 2001. Ker Wilson, Barbara, ‘Children’s Book Publishing: Reality and Virtuality: Where Are We Going? Part One’, Magpies, vol. 13, no. 4, September 1998, pp. 10–13. ——,‘Children’s Book Publishing: Reality and Virtuality: Where Are We Going? Part Two’, Magpies, vol. 13, no. 5, November 1998, pp. 10–12. ——, ‘Reaching Younger Readers’, in Craig Munro, ed., UQP: The Writer’s Press 1948– 1998, St Lucia, UQP, 1998, pp. 141–47. Key Issues in Australian Electronic Publishing, Collected Reports of the Electronic Publishing Working Group, Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, Canberra, AVCC, 1996. Kirby, Lynette, ed., Planning for Action:The Book in an Era of Change, papers from the First National Book Summit, Carlton, National Book Council, 1993. ——, The Book Idea: Imagination, Information, Access, papers from the Second National Book Summit, Carlton, National Book Council, 1995. Kirsop,Wallace, ‘Modern Australian Publishing: An Historical Perspective’, and Mills, Carol, ‘Australian Book Supply and Australiana: A Battle Against Closed Markets’, Australian Studies: Acquisition and Collection Development for Libraries, London, Mansell, 1992. ——, ‘The Book Trade: Conservative Force or Agent of Change?’, Australian Cultural History, vol. 2, 1982–83, pp. 90–103. ——, Towards a History of the Australian Book Trade, Sydney, Wentworth, 1969. Korporaal, Glenda, Project Octopus: The Publishing and Distribution Ownership Structure in the Book Industry, in Australia and Internationally, Redfern, ASA, 1990. Koval, Ramona, ‘Barbarians at the Bookshelves [GST]’, Weekend Australian, 12–13 June 1999, p. 22. Lewis, Glen, ‘It’s Academic: Imperialism and the Tertiary Book Industry’, Continuum:The Australian Journal of Media and Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, 1990. ——, ‘The Uses of Print Culture and Literacy’, Australian Journal of Communication, vol. 17, no. 2, 1990, pp. 48–53. Lewis, Jeremy, Penguin Special:The Life and Times of Allen Lane, UK, Penguin, 2005. Lewis, Julie, Mary Martin: A Double Life 1915–1973, St Lucia, UQP, 1997. Lothian, Peter, ‘Australian Publishing’, LOGOS, vol. 5, no. 4, 1994, pp. 192–94. Lyons, Martyn and John Arnold, eds, A History of the Book in Australia 1891–1945: A National Culture in a Colonised Market, St Lucia, UQP, 2001.

Further Reading

401

McCalman, Janet, ed., The Future of Academic Publishing, Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1996. McCormack, Margaret, ‘A History of Sybylla Press’, Publishing Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp. 18–25. Macleod, Mark, ‘Books for Children in the Year of the Family’, Orana, vol. 30, no. 4, November 1994, pp. 228–37. ——, ‘Marketing Books for Young People’, Viewpoint, vol. 6, no. 3, Spring 1998, pp. 5–7. McLaren, John, ed., A Nation Apart: Essays in Honour of Andrew Fabinyi, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1983. Macmillan: 100 Years in Australia, 1904–2004, Sydney, Macmillan, 2005. McPhee, Hilary, ‘Australian Publishing at the Crossroads – Again!’, Publishing Studies, no. 2, Autumn 1996, pp. 18–21. ——, Other People’s Words, Sydney, Picador, 2001. ——, ‘A Sense of Place’, Australian Book Review, vol. 80, May 1986, pp. 5–7. McVitty, Walter, A Life in Children’s Books, Melbourne, Lothian, 2004. Moran, Albert, ‘Inside Publishing: Environments of the Publishing House’, Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media and Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, 1990, pp. 119–44. Morrison, Ian et al., Sensational Tales: Australian Popular Publishing 1850s–1990s, Parkville, Vic., University of Melbourne Library, 2000. Morrow, Robin, More of a Club Than a Bookshop, Beecroft, Sydney, Robin Morrow Books, 1999. ——,‘Some Trends in Children’s Bookselling 1973–1983’, Orana, vol. 20, no. 4, November 1984, pp. 176–89. Muir, Marcie, The Wakefield Press 1942–1978, Adelaide, Book Collectors’ Society, 1993. ——, ‘Children’s Publishing after the War’, Publishing Studies, no. 6, Autumn 1998, pp. 31–37. Mulvaney, John and Colin Steele, eds, Changes in Scholarly Communication Patterns, Australian Academy of the Humanities Occasional Paper, no. 15, 1993. Munro, Craig, Wild Man of Letters: The Story of P. R. Stephensen, Melbourne, MUP, 1984 (1992 edition, UQP). ——, ‘The A&R War: Profits, Personalities and Paperbacks’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 21–28. ——, ed., UQP:The Writer’s Press 1948–1998, St Lucia, UQP, 1998. ——, ‘In Black and White: Indigenous Australian Writers and Their Publishers’, LOGOS, vol. 12, no. 2, 2001, pp. 103–7. ——, ‘Publish and be damned [UQP]’, Australian Higher Education Supplement, 2 February 2005, p. 28. Nicholson, Joyce Thorpe and Daniel Wrixon Thorpe, A Life of Books: The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd 1921–87, Melbourne, Courtyard Press, 2000. Nile, Richard, ‘Cartels, Capitalism and the Australian Book Trade’, Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media and Culture, vol. 4, no. 1, 1990, pp. 71–91. Nile, Richard and David Walker, ‘Marketing the Literary Imagination’, in Laurie

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Hergenhan, ed., The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, Penguin, 1988, pp. 284–302. O’Neil, Lloyd, ‘The Psycho-Pathology of Australian Publishing’, Quadrant, vol. 13, no. 2, 1969, pp. 62–66. Page, Roger, Australian Bookselling, Melbourne, Hill of Content, 1970. Poland, Louise, ‘Survive and Succeed: Independent Australian Publishers’, Publishing Studies, no. 7, Autumn 1999, pp. 17–30. Price, Rosalind, ‘Children’s Book Publishing’, Australian Women’s Book Review, vol. 2, no. 3, September 1990, pp. 16–17. ——, ‘The Problems of Australian Children’s Book Publishing’, Australian Book Review, July 1982, pp. 25–28. Printing Industries Association of Australia and the Australian Book Publishers Association, Book Production in Australia: A Joint Industry Study 2001. Sayers, Stuart, The Company of Books: A Short History of the Lothian Book Companies 1888– 1988, Melbourne, Lothian, 1988. Schiffrin, André, The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read, London,Verso, 2001. Schultz, Julianne, ‘Publishing or Perishing: State of the Australian Publishing Industry’, Australian Book Review, vol. 54, September 1983, pp. 10–12. Sessions, Robert, ‘Providing the Content’, Media International Australia, 81, 1996, pp. 59–63. ——, ‘Golden Years’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, August 2004, pp. 45–46. ——, ‘Children’s Book Publishing in Australia: A Lively Business’, Publishers Weekly, vol. 235, no. 12, 24 March 1989. ——, ‘Joys and Traumas of Publishing Books for Children’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 61, no. 916, May 1982, pp. 14, 16. Sheahan, Robyn, ‘Australian Children’s Books 1985–1995 Overview’, Magpies, vol. 11, no. 1, March 1996, pp. 14–17. ——, ‘Australian Children’s Books 1985–1995 Part Two: Publishing Trends’, Magpies, vol. 11, no. 2, May 1996, pp. 33–35. ——, ‘Australian Children’s Books 1985–1995 Part Three: Trends in the Shape and Style of the Book’, Magpies, vol. 11, no. 3, July 1996, pp. 20–22. ——, ‘Australian Children’s Books 1985–1995 Part Four: Awards, Competitions and Funding’, Magpies, vol. 11, no. 4, September 1996, pp. 22–24. ——, ‘Australian Children’s Books 1985–1995 Part Five: The Professionalisation of Writers and Readers in the Future of the Book’, Magpies, vol. 11, no. 5, November 1996, pp. 18–19. Souter, Fenella, ‘Publish and Be Damned [MUP]’, Good Weekend, 19 November 2005, pp. 33–38. Spencer, A. H., The Hill of Content: Books: Art, Music, People, Sydney, A&R, 1959. Starke, Ruth, Writers, Readers and Rebels: Upfront and Backstage at Australia’s Top Literary Festival, Adelaide, Wakefield Press, 1998.

Further Reading

403

Stewart, David,‘Bringing Books and Children Together: Ashton Scholastic’s Contribution to Children’s Literature and Reading’, Orana, August 1990, pp. 129–34. Stone, Jean, The Passionate Bibliophile:The Story of Walter Stone, North Ryde, A&R, 1988. Tariff Board, ‘Report on the Publishing Industry, 7 November 1946’, Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers 1946–47/48, vol. 2, paper no. 26, Canberra, Industries Assistance Commission [1948/49]. Thompson, Frank, ‘Bookselling and Publishing Part 1’, Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 11, 1976, pp. 26–31. ——, ‘Bookselling and Publishing Concluded’, Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 52, no. 12, 1976, pp. 18–25. ——, ‘Downhill all the Way’, The Australian Library Journal, May 1981, pp. 55–58. ——, ‘Legends in Their Own Lunchtimes: Australian Publishing Since 1960’, Publishing Studies, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 29–36. Trainor, Luke, ‘British Publishers and Cultural Imperialism’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 20, no. 2, 1996, pp. 99–106. Uncorrected Proof:The True History of the Australian Book Scene, Melbourne, MUP, 2005. Underhill, Nancy, Making Australian Art: Sydney Ure Smith as Art Patron and Publisher, Melbourne, OUP, 1991. Wegner, J., comp., The Directory of Company Histories of the Book Industries, Sydney, Brandywine Press and Archive, 1981 and 1989. ——, comp., Addenda to Geoffrey Farmer’s Australian Private Presses and Fine Printing, Sydney, Brandywine Press, 1992. Wheeler, Tony and Maureen, Once While Travelling: The Lonely Planet Story, Melbourne, Viking Penguin, 2005. White, H. L., ‘The Future of Australian Publishing’, Australian Quarterly, March 1946, pp. 58–69. White, Lee, ‘Book Editing in Australia: An Update’, Publishing Studies, no. 5, Spring 1997, pp. 3–7. Whitelock, Derek, Festival!:The Story of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, self-published,Adelaide, 1980. Wilder, Ken, The Company You Keep: A Publisher’s Memoir, Sydney, State Library of NSW Press, 1994. ——, ‘The Role of Multinationals in National Publishing’, Australian Bookseller & Publisher, vol. 58, no. 880, February 1978, pp. 44, 46–48. Wilding, Michael, ‘A Random House: The Parlous State of Australian Publishing’, Meanjin, vol. 34, no. 1, 1975, pp. 106–11. ——,‘Australian Literary and Scholarly Publishing in Its International Context’, Australian Literary Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, 1999, pp. 57–69. ——, ‘The History of the Book in Australia’, Newswrite, no. 103, April 2001, p. 3. Wilson, Helen, ‘Australia and the International Publishing Industry’, in Ted Wheelwright and Ken Buckley, eds, Communications and the Media in Australia, Sydney, A&U, 1989, pp. 117–37.

404

Further Reading

Windsor, Gerard, ‘Publish and Be Damned’, Australian’s Review of Books, May 1997. Zifcak, Michael, ‘Australia without Retail Price Maintenance’, LOGOS, vol. 2, no. 4, 1991, pp. 204–8.

Magazines and newspapers Bennett, Bruce, ed., Cross Currents: Magazines and Newspapers in Australian Literature, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1981. Greenop, Frank S., History of Magazine Publishing in Australia, Sydney, K G Murray, 1947. Griffen-Foley, Bridget, The House of Packer: The Making of a Media Empire, Sydney, A&U, 1999. ——, Sir Frank Packer, Sydney, HarperCollins, 2000. Holden, Robert, Cover Up! The Art of Magazine Covers in Australia, Sydney, Hodder, 1995. Inglis, K. S., ed., Nation:The Life of an Independent Journal of Opinion 1958–1972, Carlton, MUP, 1989. Lindesay, Vane, The Way We Were: Australian Popular Magazines 1856–1969, Melbourne, OUP, 1983. Pearce, Sharyn, Shameless Scribblers: Australian Women’s Journalism 1880–1995, Rockhampton, Central Queensland University Press, 1998. Rose, Michael, For the Record: 160 Years of Aboriginal Print Journalism, St Leonards, NSW, A&U, 1996. Rolfe, Patricia, Bulletin, the Journalistic Javelin: An Illustrated History of the Bulletin 1880– 1980, Sydney, Wildcat Press, 1979. Ryan, John S., Panel by Panel: A History of Australian Comics, Stanmore, Cassell, 1979. Souter, Gavin, Company of Heralds: A Century and a Half of Australian Publishing, Carlton, MUP, 1981. ——, Heralds and Angels:The House of Fairfax 1841–1990, Melbourne, MUP, 1991. Tidey, John, ‘Endangered Species? The Future of Newspapers in Australia’, Publishing Studies, no. 4, Autumn 1997, pp. 29–35. Tregenza, John, Australian Little Magazines 1923–1954:Their Role in Forming and Reflecting Literary Trends, Adelaide, Libraries Board of SA, 1964. Walsh, Richard, Ferretabilia: Life and Times of Nation Review, St Lucia, UQP, 1993. Reading and libraries AC Nielsen, A National Survey of Reading, Buying and Borrowing Books for Pleasure, commissioned for Books Alive by the Australia Council, September 2001. Australia Council, Books:Who’s Reading Them Now? A Study of Book Buying and Borrowing in Australia: Research Report, Sydney, Economic Strategies, 1995. Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Resources, The Development of National Book Resources, Canberra, The Council, 1965. ——, Libraries for the Public: A Statement of Needs, Canberra, The Council, 1968.

Further Reading

405

Australian Committee of Inquiry into Public Libraries in Australia: Report, Chairman: Mr A. R. Horton, Canberra, AGPS, 1976. Birkets, Sven, The Gutenberg Elegies, London, Faber, 1994. Biskup, Peter, Libraries in Australia, Wagga Wagga, Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, 1994. ‘Books, Readers, Reading’, David Walker, ed., with Julia Horne and Martyn Lyons, Australian Cultural History, no. 11, Geelong, Faculty of Humanities, Deakin University, 1992. Brenac, P. and A. Stevens, The Reading and Buying of Books in Australia, Sydney, Australia Council Arts Information Program, 1978. Bryan, Harrison, The Pattern of Library Services in Australia, Sydney, Library Association of Australia, 1987. ——, ‘Libraries’, in D. H. Borchardt and Wallace Kirsop, eds, The Book in Australia: Essays Towards a Cultural and Social History, Melbourne, Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, pp. 138–71. Buckridge, P., P. Murray and J. Macleod, Reading Professional Identities: The Boomers and Their Books, Cultural Policy Paper, no. 3, Nathan, Institute of Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1995. Bundy, Alan, James Bennett: Supplier to the Nation’s Libraries, Adelaide, Auslib Press, 1988. ——, Public Libraries: What Are They Worth? Proceedings of the 2nd National Public Libraries Conference, Sydney, 12–15 November 1995, Adelaide, Auslib Press, 1995. Cavallo, G. and R. Chartier, eds, Lydia G. Cochrane, trans., A History of Reading in the West, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999. Chew, Chat Naun,‘The History of Reading in Australia:A Critical Review of Recent Work’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 19, no. 2, 1995, pp. 101–14. Fenwick, Sara, School and Children’s Libraries in Australia, Melbourne, Cheshire, 1966. Guldberg, Hans Hoegh, Books – Who Reads Them? A Study of Borrowing and Buying in Australia 1990, Sydney, Australia Council, 1990. Gunew, Sneja, Lolo Houbein, Alexandra Karakostas-Seda and Jan Mahyuddin, A Bibliography of Australian Multicultural Writers, Centre for Studies in Literary Education, Deakin University, 1992. Isaacs, Margaret, Linda Emmett and Jean P. Whyte, Libraries and Australian Literature: A Report on the Representation of Creative Writing in Australian Libraries, Melbourne, Ancora Press, 1988. Horton, Warren, ‘The Library System and Book Culture in Australia’, in Jock Macleod and Pat Buckridge, eds, Books and Reading in Australian Society, Brisbane, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1992, pp. 73–83. Johnson, Rob, The Golden Age of the Argonauts, Sydney, Hodder and Stoughton, 1997. Kent, Jacqueline, In the Half Light: Life as a Child in Australia 1900–1970, Sydney, A&R, 1988; Doubleday, 1992. Kirk, Joyce, Barbara Poston-Anderson and Hilary Yerbury, Into the 21st Century: Library and Information Services, Canberra, ALIA, 1990.

406

Further Reading

Laurent, John, Pioneering Culture: Mechanics’ Institutes and Schools of Arts in Australia, Adelaide, Auslib Press, 1994. Lyons, Martyn, ‘The History of Reading and Reading Communities’, The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin, vol. 21, no. 1, 1997, pp. 5–15. ——, ‘Texts, Books and Readers: Which Kind of Cultural History?’, Australian Cultural History, no. 11, 1992, pp. 1–15. Lyons, Martyn and Lucy Taksa, Australian Readers Remember, Melbourne, OUP, 1992. Macleod, Jock and Pat Buckridge, eds, Books and Reading in Australian Society, Brisbane, Institute for Cultural Policy Studies, Griffith University, 1992. McColvin, Lionel R., Public Library Services for Children, Paris, UNESCO, 1957. ——, Public Libraries in Australia, Melbourne, ACER, 1947. Manguel, Alberto, The History of Reading, London, HarperCollins, 1997. Mulvaney, John and Colin Steele, Changes in Scholarly Communications Patterns: Australia and the Electronic Library, Canberra, Australian Academy of the Humanities, 1993. Munn, R. and E. R. Pitt, Australian Libraries: A Survey of Conditions and Suggestions for Their Improvement, Melbourne, ACER, 1935. Rayward, W. Boyd, ed., Libraries and Life in a Changing World: The Metcalfe Years 1920– 1970, Sydney, School of Information, Library and Archive Studies, UNSW, 1993. Rayward, W. Boyd, ed., Australian Library History in Context, Sydney, University of NSW School of Librarianship, 1988. Reid, Kevin, ‘The Lane Cove Book Club Remembered’, Australian Cultural History, no. 1, 1992, pp. 80–86. Valentine, Pat, Why Book Clubs?, Perth, 1996. An appendix (pp. 94–122) lists reading choices for WA book clubs from the early 1960s to 1996. Wevers, Lydia, ‘What’s Hot and What’s Not: Some Questions About Marketing, Reading and Value’, Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 20, no. 2, 1996, pp. 90–98. Whitehead, Derek, Radha Rasmussen and Anne Holmes, eds, Multiculturalism and Libraries: Proceedings of the National Conference on Multiculturalism and Libraries Held at Monash University 7–11 November 1980, Melbourne, 1981. Williams, Claire and Ken Dillon, Brought to Book: Censorship and School Libraries in Australia, Port Melbourne, ALIA in association with DW Thorpe, 1993. Young Australians Reading: From Keen to Reluctant Readers: A National Research Report on the Reading Experience of 10–18 Year Olds, prepared for the Australia Council by Woolcott Research, Melbourne, Australian Centre for Youth Literature, 2001. Australian literary history and creative writing Australian Author (journal of the Australian Society of Authors, 1965– ). Australian Book Review (1961–73, 1978– ). Australian Literary Awards & Fellowships, 5th edition, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1997. Baker, Candida, Yacker: Australian Writers Talk about Their Work, Sydney, Picador, 1986 (and sequel vols).

Further Reading

407

Bradford, Clare, Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children’s Literature, Melbourne, MUP, 2001. Capp, Fiona, Writers Defiled, Melbourne, McPhee Gribble, 1993. Children’s Book Council of Australia, At Least They’re Reading: Proceedings from the First National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Sydney 1992, Port Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1992. ——, Ways of Seeing: Story from Different Angles: Proceedings from the Second National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Melbourne, 5–8 May 1994, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1994. ——, Claiming a Place: Proceedings from the Third National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Brisbane 3–6 May 1996, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1996. ——, Time Will Tell: Children’s Literature into the 21st Century: Proceedings from the Fourth National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Adelaide 1998, Sieta Van der Hoeven, ed., Adelaide, CBC, 1999. ——, The Third Millennium – Read On! Proceedings of the Fifth National Conference of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, May 2000, Canberra, Belle Alderman and Sue Page, eds, Hughes, ACT, CBC, 2000. Coleman, Peter, Obscenity, Blasphemy, Sedition: 100 Years of Censorship in Australia, Brisbane, Jacaranda, 1961 (A&R, 1974). Collins, Paul, ed., The MUP Encyclopedia of Science Fiction & Fantasy, Carlton, MUP, 1998. Davis, Jack and Bob Hodge, eds, Aboriginal Writing Today: 1st National Conference of Aboriginal Writers, 1983, Perth, WA, Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1985. Dugan, Michael, comp., The Early Dreaming: Australian Children’s Authors on Childhood, Brisbane, Jacaranda, 1980. Dunkle, Margaret, Black in Focus: A Guide to Aboriginality in Literature for Young People, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1994. Dutton, Geoffrey, Snow on the Saltbush: The Australian Literary Experience, Ringwood, Penguin, 1984. ——, ed., The Literature of Australia, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1964, 1972. Duwell, Martin, Marianne Ehrhardt and Carol Hetherington, The ALS Guide to Australian Writers: A Bibliography 1963–1995, St Lucia, UQP, 1995. Ellison, Jennifer, Rooms of Their Own [interviews with women writers], Ringwood, Penguin, 1986. Green, H. M., A History of Australian Literature, 2 vols, Sydney, A&R, 1961. Hadcraft, Cecil, Australian Literature: A Critical Account to 1955, London, Heinemann, 1960. Hergenhan, Laurie, ed., The Penguin New Literary History of Australia, Ringwood, Penguin, 1988. Hill, Deidre, A Writer’s Rights: The Story of the Australian Society of Authors 1963–1983, Sydney, ANZ, 1983. Hooton, Joy and H. Heseltine, Annals of Australian Literature, 2nd edn, Melbourne, OUP, 1992.

408

Further Reading

Horton, David, ed., The Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Australia, 2 vols, Melbourne, Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994. James, Neil, ed., Writers on Writing, Sydney, Halstead Press, 1999. Johnson-Woods, Toni, Pulp: A Collector’s Book of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers, Canberra, NLA, 2004. Kramer, Leonie, ed., The Oxford History of Australian Literature, Melbourne, OUP, 1981. Lees, Stella and Pam Macintyre, eds, The Oxford Companion to Australian Children’s Literature, Melbourne, OUP and ALIA Press, 1993. Lord, Mary, Directory of Australian Authors, Melbourne, National Book Council, 1989. Lurie, Caroline, ‘Selling Us Short Behind the Bestseller Lists’, Australian Author, vol. 32, no. 2, August 2000, pp. 19–22. ——, ‘Writers in the Time of Takeovers’, Australian Author, vol. 31, no. 2, August 1999, pp. 16–20. McLaren, John, Australian Literature: An Historical Introduction, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1989. ——, Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as Politics in Postwar Australia, Cambridge, CUP, 1996. McVitty, Walter, Authors and Illustrators of Australian Children’s Books, Sydney, Hodder and Stoughton, 1989. Methold, Ken, A–Z of Authorship, Sydney, Keesing Press, 1996. Mudrooroo, The Indigenous Literature of Australia, Milli Milli Wangka, South Melbourne, Hyland House, 1997. Muir, Marcie, A History of Australian Children’s Book Illustration, Melbourne, OUP, 1982. ——, Australian Children’s Books 1774–1972: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 1992. Niewenhuizen, Agnes, The Written Word: Youth and Literature, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1994. Niall, Brenda, Australia through the Looking Glass: Children’s Fiction 1830–1980, Melbourne, MUP, 1984. Nimon, Maureen and John Foster, The Adolescent Novel: Australian Perspectives, Wagga Wagga, Centre of Information Studies, 1997. Reading Time, superseded New Books for Boys and Girls [Children’s Book Council of Australia Journal], 1967– . Prentice, Jeff and Bettina Bird, Dromkeen: A Journey into Children’s Literature, Knoxfield, Vic., Dent, 1987. Prentice, Jeff and Bronwen Bennett, eds, A Guide to Australian Children’s Literature, Melbourne, DW Thorpe, 1992. Richards, Michael, People, Print & Paper: A Catalogue of a Travelling Exhibition Celebrating the Books of Australia, 1788–1988, Canberra, NLA, 1988. Ross, Robert C., Australian Literary Criticism 1945–1988: An Annotated Bibliography, NY, Garland Publishing, 1989. Saxby, Maurice, A History of Australian Children’s Literature 1941–1970, vol 2, Sydney, Wentworth Books, 1971.

Further Reading

409

——, The Proof of the Puddin’: Australian Children’s Literature 1970–1990, Sydney, Ashton Scholastic, 1993. ——, Images of Australia: A History of Australian Children’s Literature 1941–1970, Gosford, Scholastic, 2002. Semmler, Clement and Derek Whitelock, eds, Literary Australia, Melbourne, FW Cheshire, 1966. Shoemaker, Adam, Black Words, White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929–88, St Lucia, UQP, 1989 (text also available on-line from ANU E Press, Canberra). Smith, June and Margaret Hamilton, Celebrate with Stories: The Children’s Book Council of Australia 1945–1995, Sydney, Margaret Hamilton Books, 1995. Stone, Michael, ‘Colonial and Post-Colonial Children’s Literature: Australia’, in Peter Hunt, ed., Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History, Oxford, OUP, 1995, pp. 322–33. Webby, Elizabeth, ed., Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature, Cambridge, CUP, 2000. White, Kerry, Australian Children’s Books 1973–1988: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 1992. ——, Australian Children’s Books 1989–2000: A Bibliography, Melbourne, MUP, 2004. Wilde, William H., Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews, The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Melbourne, OUP, 1985.

Cultural policy Andrews, Barry,‘The Commonwealth Literary Fund & the Literature Board 1908–1980’, Australian Cultural History, no.1, 1982, pp. 59–69. Bennett, Bruce, ‘Literary Culture since Vietnam: A New Dynamic’, The Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, OUP, 1988. Buckridge, Patrick, ‘Clearing a Space for Australian Literature 1940–1965’, in Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Strauss, eds, Oxford Literary History of Australia, Melbourne, OUP, 1998, pp. 169–92. Cunningham, Stuart, Framing Culture: Criticism and Policy in Australia, Sydney, A&U, 1992. Cunningham, Stuart and Graeme Turner, eds, The Media in Australia: Industries, Texts, Audiences, St Leonards, A&U, 1993. Day, Ingrid, ‘Literary Publishing in Australia: Questions of Patronage’, Media Information Australia, vol. 68, May 1993, pp. 36–42. Glover, Stuart,‘Creative Nation:Where Now for Publishing and Literature Policy’, Imago, vol. 7, no. 1, March 1995, pp. 54–58. Rickard, John, Australia: A Cultural History, Melbourne, Longman Cheshire, 1988. Serle, Geoffrey, The Creative Spirit in Australia: A Cultural History, rev. edn, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1987. Shapcott, Thomas, The Literature Board: A Brief History, St Lucia, UQP, 1988. Stevens, Irene, A Short History of the Literature Board 1986–2000 (electronic resource), Australia Council, 2004. Available at the publisher’s homepage: http://www.ozco.gov. au.

410

Further Reading

Throsby, David, ‘Public Funding in the Arts in Australia’, in Australian Bureau of Statistics Year Book Australia 2001, no. 83, cat. no. 1301.0, Canberra, ABS, 2001, pp. 548–61. Throsby, David and Beverley Thompson, But What DoYou Do for a Living?:A New Economic Study of Australian Artists, Strawberry Hills, NSW, Australia Council, 1994. Turner, Graeme, Making It National: Nationalism and Popular Culture, Sydney, A&U, 1994. ——, National Fictions: Literature, Film and the Construction of Australian Narrative, Sydney, A&U, 1986, 1993. White, Richard, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity, 1688–1980, Sydney, A&U, 1981.

Theses on the book trade Alison, Jennifer, ‘Angus and Robertson as Publishers, 1880–1900: A Business History’, University of NSW PhD, 1997. Arndell, Kim,‘The Prices Surveillance Authority Versus Publishers and Authors’, Monash University MA (Librarianship), 1995. Brown, Diane, ‘Publishing Culture: Commissioning Books in Australia, 1970–2000’, Victoria University PhD, 2003. Clark, Laurel, ‘Aspects of Melbourne Book Trade History: Innovation and Specialisation in the Careers of F. F. Bailliere and Margareta Webber’, Monash University MA, 1997. Close, Cecily, ‘The Publishing Activities of Thomas Lothian 1905–1945’, Monash University PhD, 1988. Curtain, John, ‘The Development of Book Publishing in Australia’, Monash University MA, 1997. Day, Ingrid,‘Australian Book Publishing Practices Represent and Construct What Counts as Australian Literary Culture’, RMIT BA (Hons), 1991. Galligan, Anne, ‘The Australian Author in a Web of Change: Authorship and Publishing 1972–1997’, University of Southern Queensland M.Phil, 1997. ——, ‘The Textual Condition: Negotiating Change in the Australian Literary Field’, University of Southern Queensland PhD, 2001. Haye,Valerie, ‘The Impact of Foreign Ownership on Australian Publishing in the 1970s’, La Trobe MA, 1981. Hegarty, Emma, ‘The Calculated Risk: Bestsellers and Trends in Australian Trade Publishing 1983–1999’, Monash University MA, 2002. James, Neil, ‘Spheres of Influence: Angus & Robertson and Australian Literature from the Thirties to the Sixties’, Sydney University PhD, 2000. Kapusta, Caroline, ‘British Influence on the Development of the Australian Book Trade’, Monash University MA, 1988. Magner, Brigid, ‘Trans-Tasman: Modes of Proximity and Detachment in New Zealand/ Australian Literary Culture’, Monash University PhD, 2003. Mansfield, John, ‘Book/Cover’, Monash University MA, 2004. McDonell, Margaret,‘The Invisible Hand: Cross-Cultural Influence on Editorial Practice’, University of Queensland M.Phil, 2003.

Further Reading

411

McLean, Kathleen, ‘The Contemporary Australian Book: A Product of Its Time’, University of Tasmania MA, 1996. ——, ‘Culture, Commerce and Ambivalence: A Study of Australian Federal Government Intervention in Book Publishing’, Monash University PhD, 2002. Nile, Richard, ‘The Rise of the Australian Novel’, UNSW PhD, 1988. Poland, Louise, ‘Fire in Your Belly: Independent Australian Publishers and the Acquisition of Books’, Monash University Grad. Dip. Arts (Ed. Pub.), 1997. ——, ‘Out of Type: Women in Publishing in Australia 1931–1973’, Monash University MA, 2002. ——, ‘Setting the Agenda: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics in Australia 1974– 2003’, Monash University PhD, 2004. Sheahan-Bright, Robyn, ‘To Market to Market: The Development of the Australian Children’s Publishing Industry’, Griffith University PhD, 2004. Torcasio, June, ‘Opening Magic Casements: Children’s Bookshops in Melbourne, 1945– 93’, Monash University MA, 1996. White, Lee, ‘The Role and Status of the Book Editor in Australia’, Murdoch University MA, 1986.

Archival collections A&R Papers, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney Australian Book Publishers Association Papers 1947–77, NLA, Canberra Australian Society of Authors Papers 1963–73, NLA Brindabella Press Papers, NLA Currawong Publishing Papers 1941–69, State Library of NSW Currency Press Papers 1971–89, NLA Dalton, Teki, Papers 1956–94, NLA De Berg, Hazel, taped interviews, NLA ——, Andrew Fabinyi, Tape 742, 27 February 1974: 9,620–9,641 ——, Rosemary Wighton, Tape 1085, 2 March 1978: 14,805–14,816 Dutton, Geoffrey, Papers 1961–88, NLA DW Thorpe Papers, University of Melbourne Archives Eyre, Frank, Papers 1948–88, NLA Fabinyi, Andrew, Papers, NLA Fellowship of Australian Writers Papers 1928–72, State Library of NSW Halstead Press Papers 1921–66, State Library of NSW Hill of Content Papers 1909–70, State Library of Victoria Hince, Kenneth, Papers 1958–86, State Library of Victoria Lonely Planet Papers 1980–91, NLA Lothian Books, Papers 1895–1950, State Library of Victoria McPhee Gribble Papers 1975–89, University of Melbourne Archives McVitty, Walter, Publisher’s Archive 1984–97, Lu Rees Archives, University of Canberra

412

Further Reading

Meanjin Papers 1940–87, University of Melbourne Archives Moran, Albert, Collection of Publishing Interviews, Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) Library, Canberra MUP Papers, Melbourne University Archives O’Grady, John, Papers, NLA Omnibus Books, Publisher’s Archive, Lu Rees Archive, University of Canberra Overland Papers 1987–94, State Library of Victoria Pacific Publications Papers 1932–73, State Library of NSW Paperbark Press Papers 1970–98, NLA Pascoe Publishing Papers, ADFA Primavera Press Papers, NLA Rigby Papers 1899–1982, State Library of SA Robertson & Mullens Papers 1921–60, State Library of Victoria Roderick, Colin, Papers, NLA Scripsi Papers 1981–94, University of Melbourne Archives Sisters Papers 1979–84, University of Melbourne Archives. Stephensen, P. R., Papers 1920–71, State Library of NSW. Sugar & Snails Press Papers 1974–91, University of Melbourne Archives. UQP Archive, Fryer Library, University of Queensland. Ure Smith Papers, Mitchell Library, Sydney. Wentworth Press Papers, Fisher Library, University of Sydney. Westerly Papers 1956–2002, University of WA.

Index A&C Black, 97 Abbey, Sue, 153, 189, 193 ABC Books & Audio, 93, 97, 104, 288, 343 Abernethy, John, 59, 280 Aboriginal activism, 151–2 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, 112 Aboriginal English, 151, 189, 190, 339 Aboriginal languages, 113, 151, 296 Aboriginal publishing, xii, 77, 111–13, 150–5, 194, 295; see also Aboriginal Studies Press; Black Ink Press; Fremantle Arts Centre Press; IAD Press; Magabala Books; University of Queensland Press; Aboriginal song poems, 151 Aboriginal Studies Press, 112, 133, 153, 154 see also Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Aboriginal writers, 150–5, 190, 191, 282 disadvantaged in publishing culture, 189 early books by, 219 lack of cultural literacy, 191 picture books by, 282 support and mentoring of, 154–5 women, 265 Aboriginal, see also under Indigenous ABPA Book Design Awards, 21–2, 91, 188 ABPA Book of the Year, 187 ABPA Pixie Award, 305 academic literary journals, 251, 256 Academic Remainders, 335 Academy Editions of Australian Literature, 146 acquisitions editors, 86, 192, 317, 191–3 Adam, Pat, 308 Adamson, Robert, 144, 253 Adamson, Walter, 65 Addison, Stanley S.,329 Addison-Wesley, 325, 327 Addison Wesley Longman, 87 Adelaide Festival, 172 Adelaide Writers’ Week, 43, 160, 179 attendance figures, 156–7 audience profile, 158 book sales at, 159 cultural tourism, 172 publisher involvement, 157 Rigby sponsorship, 158 see also literary festivals Adler, Louise, 330

Adler, Mortimer, 366 Age Book of the Year Award, 142, 144 agents, see literary agents AGPS Press, 342; see also Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) AH & AW Reed, see Reed Books Ajax books (Patchett), 311 Alberti, Susan, 222 Albert’s Bookshop, 203, 210 Aldridge, James, 285 Alexander, Stephanie, 96, 199 Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 195, 197 Ali, Abira, 313 All That False Instruction (‘Riley’; Higgs), 58–9, 263 Allen & Unwin Australia, 93–105, 132, 145–6 Aboriginal studies list, 96 academic list, 96, 101 agencies, 93, 97, 103–4 Australian buy-out, 98 Australian/Vogel Award, 95, 100, 143, 162 awards, 100 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship, 102 British origins, 93–4 children’s list, 97, 100, 285 commissioning, 191 company culture, 98–9, 102 company directors, 99 co-publishing, 101 distribution, 86–7, 104 establishment, 93, 94–5 exporting, 104 fiction list, 95, 99 Fourth Estate agency, 97 freelancers used, 95, 101 gender studies, 101 growth in 1990s, 102–4 The Hand that Signed the Paper, 100 Harry Potter series, 86, 97, 103 illustrated books, 102–3 Indigenous list, 101, 155, 265 international rights, 104 John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues, 96 list, 93, 95 market share, 83 mass market list, 99–100 military studies list, 96 non-fiction list, 101 ‘Publisher of the Year’, 103 publishing decisions, 192 Residential Editorial Program, 101–2 sales, 86–7, 93 sales force, 103 social sciences list, 95

staff, 98 staff shareholders, 99 Sue Hines’ list, 102–3 textbooks, 101 Tolkien titles, 95 trade biographies, 101 trade list, 96, 102 translation rights, 100, 104 turnover, 83 website, 133 wholesaling, 209 women’s studies list, 95–6, 264 see also Alliance Distribution Services; Australasian Publishing Company; Gallagher, Patrick; Haynes, Susan; Iremonger, John Allen & Unwin New Zealand, 96 Allen & Unwin–Port Nicholson Press, 96 Allen, Pamela, 281, 309 Allen, Ronald, 163 Alliance Distribution Services, 82, 104 Allinson, Alec, 20 Alphakids language program (Curtain), 321 Altman, Dennis, 59 Amazon Books amazon.com’s digital version of Robbery Under Arms, 262 bookselling via Internet, 220 pay-per-page publishing, 125 Anchor/Transworld, 272 Anderson, Jessica, 143, 352 Angry Penguins, 240, 245–6 Angry Penguins Broadsheet, 240, 246 Angus & Robertson, 6, 10–12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 31, 57–63. 179, 180, 205, 297 Aboriginal subject-matter, 296 atlases, 319 and Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA), 11, 61 Arkon paperback imprint, 61 and Australian Independent Publishers Association (AIPA), 57, 61 Australian literature promoted, 178–9 authors’ support of, 17–18 awards, 62 Barton takeover, 12, 19, 280 Bear Backs children’s paperbacks, 61 board of directors, 14–16 bookselling, 11, 203, 314–15 British operation, 59 Burns takeover bid, 12, 13–18, 57 children’s books, 62, 218, 280, 293–4, 296–7, 299 Collins shareholding, 18–19

414 Commonsense Cookbook series, 60 Commonsense Cookery Book, 11, 13 educational list, 5, 10, 13, 31, 53, 59, 314–15 franchised bookshops, 208–9 general list, 53, 59, 315 Halstead Press printery, 14, 16, 22, 26, 58, 60, 315, 358 import of UK books, 3 literary titles, 11, 13 London office, 25, 297 McGraw-Hill purchase of educational list, 60 modernisation, 59–61 News Ltd acquisition, 63, 227 novelisation of films and television, 61 Packer shareholding and takeover bid, 17, 57 paperback imprint, 13, 60 poetry list, 62 sale or return policy, 61 sales statistics, 10 share ownership, 15 They’re a Weird Mob rejected, 10, 15, 24–5, 26 training of editors at, 179–80 Young Australia Series, 60, 296 see also Davis, Beatrice; Ferguson, George; McDonald, Nan; Robertson, George; Walsh, Richard Angus & Robertson Writer’s Fellowship, 58 Anthony Hordern’s bookshop, 203 Anti-Hanging Council of Victoria, 46 Animalia (Base), 284, 295, 309 ANU Press, 334–5 Jeanneret report, 334 profitability, 334 sale to Pergamon, 335 AOL Time Warner, 118 iPublish e-books, 122 AR Pittock (school book supplier), 315 Archdall, Dr Mervyn, 177–8 Archer, Jeffrey, 351 Ardizzone, Edward, 218 Argent, Kerry, 300, 301–2 Armstrong, Judith, 115 Artemis Publishing, 267 arts funding, 165–6 Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award, 142–3 Arts Western Australia, 76, 112; see also Western Australian Literature Board Ashbolt, Allan, 243 Ashton, Julian, 293 Ashton, Robert, 64 Ashton Scholastic, 282, 304, 320; see also Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd Asia-Link Program, 141

Index Associated Book Publishers (ABP), 68–9 Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL), 141 Gold Medal, 144 Association of American Publishers, 118–19 Astley, Thea, 140, 167, 178, 319 Age Book of the Year Award, 144 Miles Franklin Award, 143 Patrick White Award, 145 Atkins, Jack, 258 atlases, 37, 40, 319 Attwood, Bain, 101 audio books, 347 Aussie Bites series, 309 Aussie Chomps series, 309 Aussie Nibbles series, 309 Austen, Jane, 352 Australasian Publishing Company, 94; see also Allen & Unwin Australia Australia Council, 166, 345 Asia-Link Program, 141 funding for individual authors, 167 funding of NBC, 162 Literature Board, 63, 64, 80, 109, 159–60, 167–8, 189, 207, 273, 274 readership surveys, 81, 345 Visiting Publishers Program (VIP), 141 Australia: National Journal, 239–40, 242 Australian and New Zealand Book Company, 209 Australian Archives, 342 Australian Association of Cultural Freedom, 250 Australian Book Centre (Queensland), 209 Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) Book Design Awards, 21–2 establishment, 4–5, 11, 293 member firms, 31, 34, 169 overseas-owned firms dominated, 56–7, 61 presidents, 5, 14, 15, 21, 23, 37, 40, 63 statistics on industry, 6 see also Australian Publishers Association ‘Australian Book, The’ (survey), 261 Australian Book Trade Advisory Committee, 6 Australian Book Review, 20, 44, 141, 252, 279, 330 Australian Bookseller & Publisher, 55, 56, 78 Australian Booksellers Association, 224 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), book industry statistics, 81, 84, 87, 170, 235, 287

Australian Centre for Youth Literature (Melbourne), 149, 288 Australian Consolidated Press, 63, 226 Australian Copyright Council, 146 Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), 318, 373 Australian Council for the Arts, 166 Australian cultural nationalism, 194, 225, 249, 300 Australian Encyclopaedia (A&R), 11, 13 Australian English academic research into, 336 colloquialisms and vulgarisms, 336–7 in New Wave plays, 69 by non-native speakers, 339 popular language, 336 pronunciation, 337–8 regional differences, 339 in They’re a Weird Mob, 28–9 in True History of the Kelly Gang, 190, 195–6, 197 see also dictionaries Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 342; see also Aboriginal Studies Press Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives, 266 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 142, 144 Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), 339, 342 bookshops, 342 dismantled, 342 editorial advice to government departments, 342 editors, 342 establishment, 341–2 see also AGPS Press Australian Independent Publishers Association (AIPA), 57, 61, 106–7, 225 Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 133, 153 Australian Journal, 240, 241 Australian Journalists’ Association (AJA), 80, 146; see also Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance Australian Language Education Association (ALEA), 324 Australian Language Research Centre, 337 Australian Literary Studies, 141, 245, 251 Australian literature global visibility, 141 research into, 141 Australian Literature Society, 142 Gold Medal, 142, 144 Australian National Dictionary Centre, 338

Index Australian New Writing (magazine), 239, 240, 242–3 Australian Paper Manufacturers, 357 Australian Printing History Project, The, 176 Australian Publishers Association, 81 bestseller statistics, 81 Book Design Awards, 21–2, 91, 176 member firms, 81–2, 169 statistics on bestsellers, 235 see also ABPA Australian Quarterly, 240, 247; see also AQ: Journal of Contemporary Affairs Australian Reading Association, 324 Australian Scholarly Publishing, 176 Australian Society of Authors (ASA) formation, 139, 146 and Public Lending Right, 168 Australian Studies Centres, 141 Australian/Vogel Award, 95, 100, 143, 160–1, 162–5 administered by Allen & Unwin, 162 Australian connection, 164 judges, 163 judging process, 163 origin of, 162 private sponsorship, 164 prize money, 163 scandals, 164–5 winners, 163–4 writers’ output following award, 164 Australian Women’s Weekly, 47, 49, 240, 362–8 biographical articles, 362–3 book club membership, 368 book reviews, 363, 364 books donated to troops, 362 Children’s Book Week, 365 editors, 362, 364 Ipana Junior Writers Contest, 365 Literary Heritage Collection, 367 promotion of ‘good reading’, 362–7 readers’ letters, 363 reports on literary events, 363–4 youth features, 364–5 Australian Writers Guild (AWG), 146 Australian Centre for Youth Literature (Melbourne), 149 authors advances for, 127 of children’s books, 218–19, 287 competitive bidding for, 90 difficult, 183–4 favoured for ‘aesthetic’ qualities, 352 favoured for ‘entertainment’, 351

gatekeepers of educational books, 325 promotional role of, 158 publishers’ relationship with, 92 relationship with editors, 182, 183, 196 royalties to, 303 tax relief for, 4 of textbooks, 316–17 see also writers awards and medals ABPA Book Design Awards, 21–2, 91, 188 ABPA Book of the Year, 187 ABPA Pixie Award, 305 Age Book of the Year Award, 142, 144 Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Award, 142–3 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 142, 144 Australian/Vogel Award, 95, 100, 160–1, 162–5 for Australian writing, 142–5 ‘Banjo’ Awards for Australian Literature, 145, 160, 161, 188 Book of the Year short list, 289 Canada–Australia Award, 141 Children’s Book Council awards, 100, 219, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 288, 289, 309 Children’s Picture Book of the Year, 100, 309 David Unaipon Award, 150–1, 153, 331 Dromkeen Medal, 305 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, 219–20, 291 Fellowship of Australian Writers Christina Stead Award, 142 Geraldine Pascall Award, 161 Hans Christian Andersen Award, 283 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, 141 John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues, 96 Julia Child Cookbook Award, 199 Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, 287 Miles Franklin Award, 77, 100, 115, 142, 143, 159, 160, 179 National Book Council awards, 142, 160, 161 Nita B. Kibble Award for Women Writers, 188 NSW Premier’s Literary Award, 95, 142, 155, 160, 188 Patrick White Award, 142, 145, 161 for poetry, 142 premier’s awards, 142 promotional activity associated, 161

415 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 142 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, 160, 172 South Australian Biennial Literary Awards, 160 3M Talking Book Award, 188 T.S. Eliot Award, 142 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 142, 160, 188 Western Australian Literary Awards, 160 see also prizes Axiom Publishing, 262 baby-boomers characteristics of, 349–50 reading rate, 351 study of reading habits, 349–55 Bail, Murray, 115, 141, 145 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 141 Baillie, Allan, 309 Bain, Greg, 331 Baker, Ainslie, 364 Baker, Sidney J., 337 Ball, Duncan, 291 Ball, W. MacMahon, 248 Bancroft, Bronwyn, 295 ‘Banjo’ Awards for Australian Literature, 145, 160, 161, 188 banning of books, 171 Bantam Books, 52 Barjai (magazine), 240, 247 Barlow, Annette, 102 Barnard, Marjorie, 145, 166 Barnes, Helen, 309 Barnesandnoble.com, 118 Barrell, Fred, 35, 317 Bartholomew, E.E., 21 J.G. Bartholemew, 319 Barton, Gordon, 19, 57, 180, 254, 280 Base, Graeme, 91, 281, 284, 295, 309 Basil Blackwell, 95 Bates, Daisy, 296 Bates, H.E., 361 Bath, John Morley, 41 Bath, Hazel, 41 Bath, Mary, 41; see also Branson, Mary Batt, Leon, 242 Batten, Theo, 52 Baum, Caroline, 140 Bay Books, 49 Baylebridge, William, see Blocksidge, Charles William BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, 142 Beach, Eric, 273 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship, 102 Beaver, Bruce, 144–5 Beecher, Eric, 110, 113–14 Bell, George, 217

416 Bellear, Lisa, 152 Benier, Frank, 52 Bennett, W.R., 52, 258 Benterrak, Krim, 77, 152–3 Beresford, Bruce, 254 Berkeley, George, 318 Berkhut, Andrew, 306 Bernard, John, 338 Berndt, C.H., 25 Berndt, R.M., 25 Berryman, Lisa, 288 Bertelsmann AG, 87 Bertram, Moira, 52 bestsellers, 26, 28, 39, 61, 67, 103, 140, 235–7, 344–5, 346 Bevan, Miss (bookseller), 216 Biggles books, 358 bilingual books, 296 Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), 318 Bird, Carmel, 264 Bird, Mrs Ellis, 214, 216 Black Dog Books, 288, 322 Black Inc., 66 Black Ink Press, 154 Black, Rhonda, 94, 95, 98 BlackBooks, 152 Blacklock, Dyan, 281 Blackwattle Press, 266 Blainey, Geoffrey, 13, 33, 46, 116, 329 Blake Education, Go series, 321 Blaxell, Gregory, 36, 318, 318, 321 Blazey, Peter, 65 Bleeck, Gordon Clive, 258 Blight, John Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 Patrick White Award, 145 Blocksidge, Charles William (‘William Baylebridge’), 143–4; see also Grace Leven Poetry Prize Bloomsbury Publishing, 93, 97 Boldrewood, Rolf, 260 Bolliger, Belinda, 288 Bologna Children’s Book Fair, 282 Bologna Ragazzi Prize, 303 Bolton, Alec, 10, 27 Book Bounty, 75, 165, 169, 176, 186 Book City, 208 book clubs, 213–4, 286, 303–6, 307, 348, 365–6 book design, 175–6, 186, 198–9 book as artefact, 91 children’s books, 291, 301 collaborative effort, 198 covers, 51, 198, 261, 262, 312 impact on reader, 200–1 Omnibus picture books, 301–2 supported by Frank Eyre, 21–2 Text publications, 114 see also illustrated books Book Design Awards (APA), 21–2, 91 book discussion groups, 188

Index book editors, see editors Book Industry Assistance Plan, 169–70 Book Lover,The (journal), 215–16 Book Lovers Library and Bookshop, 214, 215–16 Book of the Year short list, 289 book printing, see printing Book Production in Australia: A Joint Industry Study (JIS), 85–9 Book Promotion Campaign, 170 book publishing, see publishing book reviews, 239 book trade changes in, 79 Booker Prize, 141, 161 Bookman Press, 66 Bookpeople of Australia, 106 books advantage over e-books, 119–20 competition from other media and entertainment, 374 content re-versioning, 128–9 cross-promotion with films, 129 instruments of social advancement, 367 multiple formats, 128 numbers bought, 345 physical properties, 370 Books Illustrated (Melbourne), 149, 288 Books – Who Reads Them? (Literature Board survey), 207 BookScan, see Nielsen BookScan bookselling book clubs, 213–4, 286, 303–6, 307, 348, 365–6 book fairs, 303 Book Megastore, 208 of British imports, 5 ‘buying around’, 204 censorship, 211–12 closed market, 203–4, 209 competition, 224, 231 discounting, 5, 205, 208 educational, 209–10, 314 franchising, 208–9 by newsagents, 208 non-traditional outlets, 287 open market plan rejected, 207 post WWII, 202, 224 pricing, 5, 203, 206–7 range of retail outlets, 20/ remaindering, 205 resale price maintenance, 204–5 of school books, 209–10 staff training, 230 ‘Statement of Terms’, 5, 55, 169, 203, 205 tax rebate on educational books, 213 textbooks, 314 30/90 Rule, 206 at universities, 210–11, 222 in US, 222 wholesaling, 209

see also Copyright Amendment Act 1991 bookshops Bookworld, 228–31 chain stores, 208, 220, 231 for children’s books, 279 Collins Booksellers, 221–4 department stores, 220 foreign language, 219 independent/small, 208, 214–20, 220 Internet shopping, 220 The Little Bookroom, 217–20 Margareta Webber Bookshop, 214–17 major city outlets, 203 other key outlets, 203 promotional events, 150, 187 religious, 203 in suburban shopping centres, 220 BookTrack, 81, 83–4, 235; see also Nielsen BookScan Bookwise International, 209 Bookworld (discount bookselling chain), 208 advertising, 228–9 amalgamation, 231 buying trips, 230 exclusive deals with publishers, 230 expansion and new stores, 229, 231 merger with A&R, 205 remainder bookstore, 229 reprints, 230 shareholding to Paul Hamlyn, 231 staff training, 230 Borders bookstores, 214, 220, 224 borrowing, 345, 346; see also libraries Boswell, James, 345 Bowker’s Global Books in Print database, 238–9 Boyd, Martin, 33, 39 Boyd, Robin, 20, 33 Bradbury, Ray, 361 Bradley, Clive, 328 Braine, John, 51 Branson, Mary, 41, 42 Branson,Vernon, 41–3; see also Rigby Limited Brdar,Visnja, 102 Breckwoldt, Roland, 60 Brett, Lily, 142 Brewster, Anne, 77 Brinsmead, Hesba Fay, 23, 218, 296, 311 Brisbane, Katharine, 67, 72 Bristol Books, 209 British publishers Australian publishing, 56 colonial editions, 7 pricing of books, 5 sales in Australia, 31, 56

Index stock and indent procedure, 203–4 Broken Hill Writers Centre, 148 Brookner, Anita, 352 Brooks, Ron, 100, 219, 282, 295, 307 Brooks Waterloo, 327 Broome, Richard, 96 Broome (WA), 111 State Literature Centre regional office, 148 Brown, Janet Venn, 25 Brown, Jenny, 65 Brown Prior Anderson, 22 Bruce, Mary Grant, 217, 311 Buchan, John, 359–60 Buchanan, Cheryl, 152 Buckingham, Nell, 317 Buffa, D.W., 99 Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek,The (Wagner, Brooks), 219, 282, 295, 307 Burns, Walter Vincent, 13–18, 57 Bush Babies (Gibbs), 311 Butler, Sue, 37, 197 Butterworths electronic delivery systems, 131 Legal Information Centre, 132 Button, John, 116 Byron Bay Writers Festival, 148 Cairns, J.F., 39 Caldicott, Helen, 328 Callahan, Mary, 186 Callil, Carmen, 158 Calvert Books, 257, 258 Cambridge University Press distributor for Currency, 69 Cameron, Col, 52 Campbell, Andrew, 65 Campbell, David, 11, 46, 144, 178 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 Patrick White Award, 145 Campbell, Ron (‘Rex Grayson’), 241 Campion Books, 210 Canongate Books (UK), 117 Cape, Jonathan, 215 Caprek Investments Pty Ltd, 48 Carew, Edna, 101 Carey, Gabrielle, 108 Carey, Peter, 74, 140, 157, 252, 298, 346, 352 ‘Adventures Aboard the Marie Celeste’ (unpub.), 65 Age Book of the Year Award, 144 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 The Big Bazoohley, 312 Booker Prizes, 141 children’s books, 285 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 141, 161 Jack Maggs, 141, 196 Miles Franklin Award, 143 Oscar and Lucinda, 141 True History of the Kelly Gang, xiii, 141, 190, 195–8, 262

writing style, 195–6 Carmen, Leon (‘Wanda Koolmatrie’), 348 Carmody, Isobelle, 283, 308 Carnegie Corporation, 373 Carroll, John, 99, 114 Carrols (Perth bookseller– publisher), 5 Casey, Maie, 44 Cassell, 58, 260 Castellani, Christopher, 117 Castro, Brian, 97, 100 Caswell, Brian, 285, 298 Catholic Library Suppliers, 203 Cato, Nancy, 167, 328 Caton, Mr (Koornang librarian), 359, 360, 361 Catterwell, Thelma, 300 Cawte, Fred, 42 Cawthorne, W.A., 285 Cayley, Neville W., 60 censorship, 211–12, 347 booksellers challenges, 212 changing attitudes, 171 descriptive terms, 212 of the Internet, 171–2 Postmaster-General’s powers, 211 in Queensland, 171, 211 regulations, 170–1 in South Australia, 212 state responsibility, 211 in Tasmania, 212 in Victoria, 211–12 in Western Australia, 212 Central Queensland University Press, 33 Central West Writers Centre, 148 Chamberlin, Helen, 286 Champion, Elsie Bell, 215–16 Chan, Melissa, 267 Chance,Victoria, 71, 72 Chapman, Jean, 283, 296, 297 Chapman, Norma, 216 Chase, James Hadley, 51 Chaucers Bookshop, 214, 216 Chauncy, Nan, 23, 293 Cheshire, see FW Cheshire Cheshire’s Bookshops, 19–20, 203, 210, 214, 314 Cheyney, Peter, 344–5 Chifley, Ben, 11 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBC), 147, 279, 289–2 aims, 289, 290 awards, 100, 219, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 288, 289, 309 Awards Foundation, 288, 292, 303 ‘children’s choice’ awards, 291 early years, 23, 24, 289 education and librarianship, 290 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, 219–20 hardbacks preferred, 308 judges’ reports, 291–2 judging panels, 289

417 ‘Older Readers’ award category, 219 Picture Book of the Year, 100, 309 sponsorship for awards, 292 state/territory branches, 294 ‘Younger Readers’ award category, 219 children’s book publishers ABC Books, 288 Allen & Unwin, 285 Angus & Robertson, 293–4, 296–7 Ashton Scholastic, 282 Black Dog Books, 288 Era Publications, 286, 287 Five Mile Press, 288 Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 285 Greater Glider Productions, 285, 287 HarperCollins, 283, 288 Hinkler Books, 288 Hodder & Stoughton, 282–3, 297 Hodder Headline, 288 Hyland House, 285 Jam Roll Press, 285 Koala Books, 286 Lansdowne Press, 294–5 Little Hare Books, 288 Longman, 294 Lothian Books, 286 Macmillan, 294 Magabala Books, 286, 295 Margaret Hamilton Books, 285 McPhee Gribble, 282 Methuen, 281 Omnibus Books, 284, 299–302 Oxford University Press, 283, 293–4 Pan Macmillan, 288 Paul Hamlyn, 294 Penguin Books, 281, 282, 283–4, 286–7, 307–9 Random House, 287, 288 Rigby, 280–1, 294, 294 Scholastic Australia, 286, 302–6 Thomas Nelson, 281, 294 University of Queensland Press, 285, 286, 298 Walter McVitty Books, 284 William Collins & Sons, 281–2 Working Title Press, 287 children’s book publishing, 23, 24, 61, 62, 77, 91, 97 British bias in pre-WWII period, 279 criteria for excellence, 290 impediments to Australian publishing, 279 local titles displaced imports, 284 mass marketing, 288 production costs, 279 small number of large publishers, 237 supporting institutions, 288

418 teachers’ and librarians’ input, 280 teenage market, 219 see also Children’s Book Council; illustrated books; picture books Children’s Book Week, 278, 289, 293 children’s books Australian content popular with overseas readers, 311 Australian novels, 218 Australian style distinctive, 300–1 award-winners criticised, 290–1 bestsellers, 237–8 educational aspects of, 291 fiction for older children, 295 hardbacks, 218, 308 illustrations, 293–4 imported vs local titles, 299–30 market under-exploited, 299 of 1950s, 357–8 of 1940s, 356–7 overseas editions, 310, 312 paperbacks, 219, 284, 294 picture books, 279, 280, 287, 294–5, 299, 309 reflect nationalism of culture, 300 translated editions, 310–13 Children’s Picture Book of the Year award, 100 Choicemakers, 288 Chong, Weng Ho, 114, 117 Christensen, Rachael, 112 Christesen, C.B., 239, 244–5, 254 Christer, Nikki, 185 Christie, Agatha, 344, 351 Christina Stead Prize, 142 circulation of books, 170–2 Circus Books, 66 Clancy, Laurie, 65 Clark, Manning, 13, 217, 329 Clark, Margaret, 287, 291 Clark, Mavis Thorpe, 218, 280, 282–3 Clarke, John, 96 Clarke, Judith, 143, 285, 298 Clay, Marie, 321 Cleary, Jon, 51 Clendinnen, Inga, 116 Cleveland Publishing Company, 257, 258–9 Clift, Charmian, 51, 159, 167 Close, Robert, 69, 171, 241 closed market debate, 79–80 Clouston, Brian, xii, 75, 180 at ANU Press, 334–5 dictionary projects, 337 at Jacaranda Press, 5, 34–8, 314, 320, 337 see also Jacaranda Press Clouston, Donald, 36 Clune, Frank, 10, 16, 18, 242, 261, 345 Coddington’s Bookshop (Wollongong), 223 codex technology, 120

Index Coffey, Eddie, 297 Coffey, Ray, 77, 194 Cohen, Bernard, 100 Coleman, Peter, 171, 251 Collins publishers, see William Collins, Sons & Co. Collins Booksellers (later Pty Ltd), 203, 222, 223 airport bookselling, 223 book clubs, 223 and book industry organisations, 224 book superstores, 214 Broadway superstore (Sydney), 224 competition to, 224 establishment, 221 expansion in 1960s and 1970s, 222–3 franchising, 223 Hill of Content Bookshop, 94, 203, 214, 221 interstate branches, 223 management team, 223 Monash University bookshop, 211, 222 newsagencies, 221 purchase of existing bookshops, 223 shopping centre outlets, 222 university bookselling, 222 Collins, Jackie, 346, 351 Collins, John, 319 Collins, Robyn, 285, 298 Collinson, Laurence, 247 ColourCode (discount bookseller), 208 Colourtone Pty Ltd, 48 commissioning, 191–4 and turnover, 193–4 see also acquisitions editors commissioning editor, role of, 191, 192 Commonsense Cookery Book, 11, 13 Commonwealth Customs, 171 Commonwealth Literary Fund, 4, 11, 160, 166–8 Commonwealth Writers Prize, 115, 141–2, 161 communication advances, 90–1 Communist Party, 249 community writers’ groups, 274 computerisation, 72, 92; see also Nielsen BookScan Condon, Matthew, 143 Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), 250 Conning, Neil, 324 Consolidated Press Ltd, 47–9 A&R takeover bid, 48–9 Australian Women’s Weekly, 362–9 Colourtone Pty Ltd printery, 48 Little Golden Books, 48–9 school textbooks, 48 Continuum International Publishing Group, 104

Cook, Hamish, 65 Cook, Kenneth, 116 Cook, Patrick, 60–1 Cooke, Kaz, 96, 111 Cooney, Jean, 69, 71, 72 co-operative societies (bookselling), 222 Cop This Lot (O’Grady), 28 co-publishing, 55 copyright, 53, 79–80, 170, 205–6 anti-circumvention devices, 135 Commonwealth control, 166 and electronic text, 134–6 enforcement of owners’ rights, 134 recent developments, 136 removal of electronic rights management information, 135 right of access, 136 risk of pirating, 134 see also on-line contracts; territorial copyright; Traditional Market Agreement Copyright Act 1968, 204, 328 Copyright Amendment Act 1991, 206–7 Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL), 80, 81, 82, 146, 323 Copyright Law Review Committee (CLRC), 206–7 Corris, Peter, 99, 259, 350, 353–4 Couani, Anna, 265 Couchman, Alfred, 25 Courtemanche, Gil, 117 Courtenay, Bryce, 26, 121, 140, 287, 298 Cousins, Aubrey, 14 Cousins, Walter, 10, 177–8 Covell, Roger, 46 Covernton, Jane, xii, 193–4, 281, 287, 299, 302 Cowan, Peter, 145 Cowan, (later Sir) Zelman, 73 Cowell, Judy, 282 Cowper, (later Sir) Norman, 17–18 Craven, Maurie, 221, 222 Creasey, John (‘Anthony Morton’, ‘J.J. Marric’), 360 creative non-fiction (‘faction’), 140 creative writing, teaching of, 141 Crew, Gary, 286 crime fiction, 259 Crisp, Fin, 60 Critical Review, 251 Critici in Erba Prize, 283 Croll, H., 241 ‘crossover’ novels, 140 Crozier, Cecily, 246 CSIRO, publishing role, 343 cultural studies, 348 Cunningham, David, 283 Cunningham, Sophie, 102, 189, 189, 192 Currawong Publishing Company, 257 Currency House, 71, 72–3

Index Currency Press, 66–73 computerisation, 72 critical studies, 71 Currency Methuen Drama, 68 Current Theatre Series, 70, 71, 72 distribution, 69 establishment, 68 export business, 69 Indigenous list, 153 Modern Drama series of anthologies, 71 music list, 70 Playbox Theatre programs, 70 publishing and translation rights, 69 screenplays, 71 thematic anthologies, 71 see also Brisbane, Katharine; Parsons, Dr Philip Currey, John, 40 Currey O’Neil, 40 Curriculum Corporation, on-line services, 132 curriculum development, 322–3 curriculum outcomes, 323 Curtain, Eleanor, 322 Curtain, John, 20, 318 Curthoys, Ann, 101 Curtis, Neil, 64–5 Cusack, Dymphna, 47, 140, 178 D Davis and Co Pty Ltd, 48 Daily Telegraph, 47 Dakin, W.J., 60 d’Alpuget, Blanche, 66 Damned Whores and God’s Police (Summers), 56, 263 D’Aprano, Zelda, 264 Darville, Helen, 348 ASAL Gold Medal, 143 Australian/Vogel Award, 164–5 The Hand that Signed the Paper, 100, 164–5 Miles Franklin Award, 100, 143, 164–5 see also Demidenko, Helen David Jones bookshop chain, 223 David Unaipon Award, 150–1, 153, 331 Davies, Bryn, 252 Davies, Julian, 115 Davies, Luke, 102 Davies, Peter, 37 Davis, Beatrice Deloitte, xii, 57, 177–82 at A&R, 10, 15 conflict with Richard Walsh, 181 departure from A&R, 180–1 and Dr Mervyn Archdall, 177–8 early years, 177 editorial process, 180 fiction list, 11 freelancing, 181 literary publisher at A&R, 13, 178 Miles Franklin Award judge, 179

NSW Premier’s Award panel member, 179 Pacific Books paperback imprint, 18 rejection of They’re a Weird Mob, 25 relationship with authors, 174 S.H. Prior Memorial Prize panel member, 179 supporter of children’s literature, 178, 279 tensions at A&R, 58–9 at Thomas Nelson, 181, 281 training of editors, 10, 179–80 and Xavier Herbert, 174–5 see also Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship Davis, Jack, 69, 151, 153 Davis, Mark, 102 Davison, Frank Dalby, 33 Davison, L.H., 248 Dawe, Bruce, 20, 140, 144, 145 Day, Marele, 99 Day of the Triffids (Wyndham), 361 de Groen, Alma, 145 de Lucca, Erri, 117 Deakin University Press, 335 Dearnley, Steve, 282 death of the book predicted, xiii defamation, 166, 170 Defoe, Daniel, 358 Deighton, Len, 351 Delbridge, Prof. Arthur, 37, 337, 338 Demidenko, Helen, 100, 164–5, 348; see also Darville, Helen demographic change, 54 Denholm, Michael, 225 Dennis, C.J., 26–7 Denton, Terry, 283 deregulation of book trade, 169 Derricourt, Robin, 333 design, see book design design awards, 176 design technique, 91 designers freelance, 75, 176 role of, 198 training of, 21 Dessaix, Robert, 140, 158 Dettman, Joy, 140 Devanny, Jean, 166 Dezsery, Andras, 269, 275 Dezsery Ethnic Publications, 269, 274 Dickens, Charles (author), 352 Dickens, Charles (bookseller), 221 Dickie, John, 171 dictionaries, 23, 37, 336–9 see also Australian English Digby, Desmond, 282, 295 digital printing, 124–5 discounting by chain bookshops, 127 Disher, Garry, 99 distribution, xi, 52, 62, 69, 76–7, 82, 85, 131, 186, 225, 331

419 Dixon, Graeme, 153 Dixon, John, 52 Dobson, Jill, 285, 298 Dobson, Rosemary, 10, 145, 159, 178, 296 Dodd, David, 229 Doherty, Richard, 123 Dominie bookshop, 314, 315 Donkin, Nance, 296 Donne bookshop, 214 Donovan, Paul, 94, 98, 99 Donovan, Sue, 40, 322 Doubleday book club, 214, 306 Sydney office, 6 Douglas, Josie, 189–90 Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction, 188 Dove Communications, 321 Dowrick, Stephanie, 97 Drake-Brockman, Henrietta, 241 Drakeford, Ian, 331 Dransfield, Michael, 46, 74 Drewe Robert, 110, 141, 142 Dromkeen Homestead, 304 Dromkeen Medal, 305 Dromkeen Museum of Australian Children’s Literature, 149, 304 Drummond, Don, 320, 321 Drummond, Sheila, 320, 321 Duffy & Snellgrove, 259 Dugan, Michael, 65, 282 Dunkle, Margaret, 286 Dunn, Des R., 258 Dunn, Jim, 328 Dupleix, Jill, 102 Durack, Elizabeth, 279 Durack, Mary, 241, 279 Durack, Terry, 102 Durbach, Andrea, 102 Durie, Jamie, 102–3 Durrell, Lawrence, 352 Dutton, Geoffrey, 39, 46, 144, 282 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 Sun Books, 43–4 DW Thorpe Pty Ltd, 78–80 see also Nicholson, Joyce Thorpe; Thorpe, Daniel Wrixon Dyer, Ron, 222 Dykebooks, 264 Dymocks, 5, 203, 260 E ink (electronic ink), 123–4 Earls, Nick, 143 Eat Me (Jaivin), 115 e-books, xiii, 85, 118–23 advantages, 118 Australian publishing of, 122–3 Barnesandnoble.com, 122 ClearType (Microsoft), 120 comparison with paper, 119 CoolType (Adobe), 120 disadvantages compared with books, 119 early predictions over-hyped, 122

420 free out-of-copyright texts, 120–1 library borrowing, 136 marketing, 122 niche markets for, 123 piracy concerns, 123 pricing, 122 readers for, 120–1, 124 see also Project Gutenberg E-books Corporation, 122 editing of Aboriginal English, 19 fact-checking, 179 ‘invisible mending’, 182 little understood or appreciated, 175 McPhee Gribble process, 183 structural, 189–90 subcontracted to freelancers, 175 of True History of the Kelly Gang, 195–6 editorial standards, 92, 291–2 editors Aboriginal, 153–4 of children’s books, 279, 280, 282–4 freelance, 75 increasing responsibilities, 181 in-house reducing in number, 181 log of claims, 80 lure authors, 127 mentors, 189 relationship with authors, 182, 183, 196 role played by, xii, 192 status, 181 support of authors, 185 training of, 10, 21, 22, 54, 175, 179–80, 181 women, 174, 295, 295, 362 working relationship with Indigenous authors, 189–90 see also acquisitions editors; Davis, Beatrice Deloitte; Institute of Professional Editors; publisher Educational Lending Right, 168, 170, 281 educational publishing 8, 315, 323 atlases, 37, 319 authors as gatekeepers, 325 dictionaries, 327, 338 electronic delivery of learning materials, 322 English as a Second Language (ESL) program, 320 export market, xii language programs, 321 manuscript acquisition, 317 niche publishers, 320–1 overseas owners, 322, 325 post-war growth, xii, 8, 31, 315 professional educators involved, 318 profitability, 87 in Queensland, 35

Index reading programs, 318–20 ‘reading recovery’ approaches, 321 state/territory specialisation, 323 by subject teachers’ associations, 324 teachers as authors, 316–17 US tertiary market, 6 see also textbook publishing; United States publishers Educational Textbook Subsidy Scheme, 170 Edwards, Hazel, 283 Eggleston, F.W., 248 Eggleston, Hon. Richard, 79 Eichhorn, Peter, 95, 98, 104 Eisenstein, Hester, 96 Eleanor Dark Foundation, 149; see also Varuna Writers Centre electronic books, see e-books electronic delivery systems, 131–4 electronic paper, 124 electronic publishing, 118–23 economics of, 121–3 Elliott, Louise, 285, 298 Elliott, Sumner Locke, 145 Ellis, Bret Easton, 171 Ellis, Renee, 46 Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History, Society and Culture,The (Horton), 154 Endeavour Language Program, 36, 316, 318–19 English-language book market, 3–4 English, pronunciation of, 33 Enright, Nick, 71 Envisioneering Group, 123 Epanomitis, Fotini, 100 Epstein, Jason, 127 Era Publications, 286, 287 Ern Malley hoax, 246 Erwin Report into government publishing, 341 Evans, Gareth, 358 Evatt, Herbert, 11 Eve Pownall Award for Information Books, 219–20, 291 Everyman’s bookshop, 214, 216 Ewers, J.K., 241 export of books, xi, 3, 11–12, 89, 91 Eyre, Frank, 6, 21–4, 180 ABPA involvement, 11, 24 established OUP in Australia, 293 high standards, 24, 293 interest in literature, 22 interest in South Pacific, 23 retirement, 283 support of children’s publishing, xii, 23, 24, 218, 279 support of The Little Bookroom, 218 training of book designers, 21 training of editors, 22 Eyre, Muriel, 21

Faber & Faber Ltd, 104 Fabinyi, Andrew, xi, xii, 6, 21, 180 and ABPA, 293 ‘The Australian Book’ survey, 261–2 at Cheshire, 6, 11, 19–21, 314 at Longman Cheshire, 21 at Pergamon, 20–1 ‘Peter Pica’ column in ABR, 20 supporter of children’s literature, 278, 279, 288 Facey, Albert ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 A Fortunate Life, 77, 145, 152, 285 ‘faction’ (creative non-fiction), 140 Fadiman, Clifton, 367 Fairbairn, John, 285, 298 Falkiner, Suzanne, 163 Farjeon, Eleanor, 218, 296 Farmer, Beverley, 111, 140 Farrell, Ann, 297 Farrell, James T, 361 Farrell, Sally, 297 Farwell, George, 239 Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), 4, 146–7, 166, 274 Christina Stead Award, 142 feminism, 184, 263 Feminist Book Fair, 6th International (1994), 267 feminist publishing, 263–7 co-operatives and collectives, 264 lesbian feminist writing, 264 poetry, 265 Fenston, Esmé, 364, 365 Ferguson, George, xii, 6 and ABPA, 23 Angus & Robertson publisher, 5, 14–15, 61, 293 and Burns takeover attempt, 15–18 on Moomba Festival and book exhibition, 32 see also Angus & Robertson Ferguson, Jean, 223 Ferguson, John, 59 Ferguson, Sir John Alexander, 11 Ferlinghetti, Laurence, 46 Fesl, Eve, 153 Fienberg, Anna, 285 file-sharing networks, 134–5 Film and Literature Classification, Office of, 171 films cross-promotional with books, 129 novelisation of, 61 spin-offs from books, 140 Finkel, George, 296 Fisketjon, Gary, 196 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 364 FitzGerald, Robert D., 144, 178 Fitzgerald, Tom, 254 Fitzgerald, Zelda, 364 Fitzpatrick, Brian, 329–30 Five Mile Press, 288

Index Flanagan, Richard Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 141, 161 Gould’s Book of Fish, 140, 141 Flannery, Tim, 116 Flaubert, Gustave, 352 Flood, Tom, 100 Florance, Kate, 72 Flynn, Warren, 77 Fogarty, Lionel, 152 Foley, Bernadette, 97 Folio Society, 91, 214 Follett, Ken, 351 Follow the Rabbit-proof Fence (Pilkington), 141, 153 Forbes, Alison, 21 Forces Education Service, 345 Ford, Catherine, 115 Forester, C.S., 360 Forster, Clare, 298 Forward Library Supplies, 209 Fowler, Fred, 52 Fowler, H.W., 339 Fox Film, see Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. Fox, Mem, 284, 295, 301–2, 309 franchising, 208–9 Francis, Dick, 346, 351 Franco, Deborah, 72 Frankfurt Book Fair, 6, 12, 79, 98 Franklin, Miles, 143, 166, 179; see also Miles Franklin Award Franzen, Jonathan, 118 Fraser government proposal for sales tax on books, 212 privatisation of AGPS, 342 Frederick Muller (London publisher), 17, 48 freelance copy editors and designers, 75 Fremantle Arts Centre, 76 Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 76–8, 145, 152–3, 285 Australian Rules series, 77 children’s/teenage literature list, 77, 285 distribution, 76–7 Indigenous list, 77, 152–3, 265 publishing policy, 76 see also Coffey, Ray; Templeman, Ian Fremantle Arts Centre Writers’ Week, 158 Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, 149, 288 French, Simon, 62, 304, 309 Fullerton, Jan, 375 Fulton, Elizabeth, 281 Fulton, Joel, 223 Funder, Anna, 142 funding for literature for education and libraries, 281 federal government, 165 GST compensation package, 166 pre-war levels, 165–6

for promotion of literature, writing, books, 172 state governments, 165, 168 see also Book Bounty; Public Lending Right Funnell, Linda, 189 FW Cheshire Publishing, 13, 19–21, 31 bookshop, 19–20, 203, 210, 214, 314 educational publishing, 5, 31 Lansdowne purchase, 40 LaTrobe University bookshop, 211 paperback series, 20 publishing partnership with Jacaranda, 319 takeover by IPC, 320 Wilke purchase, 35 Gaarder, Jostein, 103 Gaita, Raimond, 116 Gallagher, Patrick, 86, 98, 99, 162 Gamble, Kim, 285 Game, Ann, 96 Garner, Helen, 108, 116, 140, 183, 346, 350, 352, 354 on literary festivals, 158 published by McPhee Gribble, 111 Garry Allen Pty Ltd, 209 Gaté, Gabriel, 102 gay and lesbian literature, 266 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 266 Gee, Margaret, 65 Gellert, Leon, 29 Gemstar International, 120, 122 Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria (GTAV), 324 George Allen & Unwin, 93–5, 97 merger with Bell & Hyman, 97 see also Allen & Unwin Australia; Unwin Hyman George Barker bookseller, 210 George Philip cartographic publisher, 40 George Robertson paperbacks, 257 Georgian House, 13, 69, 171 Geraldine Pascall Award, 161 Giant Devil Dingo,The (Roughsey), 219, 295 Gibbs, Julie, 96, 102 Gibbs, May, 10, 311 Gilbert, Kevin, 145, 151 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Gilder, John, 322 Gillespie, Mark, 63, 64, 65 Gilling, Tom, 115 Gilmore, Dame Mary, 17, 166 Ginibi, Ruby Langford, 155 Ginsberg, Allen, 46 Glassop, Lawson, 171 Gleeson, Brendan, 96 Gleeson, Pat, 325 Gleeson, Libby, 62, 303, 309 Gleitzman, Morris, 287, 309

421 global publishing, 9 Gnutella, 134, 135 Godden, Anne, 281 Golden Press Pty Ltd, 40, 48, 49, 227 Goodman, Kenneth, 324 Goodman,Yetta, 324 Goodman, Robert, 42 Goods and Services Tax, see GST Google pay-per-page publishing, 125 Goolarri Media Enterprises, 112 Gordon & Gotch, 224–7 and A&R retail operations, 226 commemorative volume, 224–5 decline, 227 distribution network, 224, 226 and Golden Press, 49 magazines and journals distribution, 209, 224, 226, 227 Murray Publishers (in-house distributor), 226 paperback distribution, 52 post-WWII growth, 224 profitability, 224, 226 purchase by Herald and Weekly Times group, 226 support of British publishing, 225 takeovers, 226 warehousing, 224, 227 Gordon, Harry, 39 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Gorman, Sandra, 72 Gorton, Sir John, 49 Gough, Irene, 303 Gough, Sue, 285, 298 Gould’s Book of Fish (Flanagan), 140 government departments as publishers, 341, 342 government publishing, 340–3 Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), 339, 341–2 Hansard, 340 printing or publishing, 341 Victorian Government Printer, 340 Gow, Michael, 71 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 142, 143–4, 159 Graduate Program in Publishing Studies (RMIT University), 81 Grady, Claire, 72 Graham, Mary, 189 Grahame Book Company, 52, 210 Grand Days (Moorhouse), 143 Granta Publications, 104 Grants to Primary School Libraries, 170 graphic design, 21–2, 44–5, 51, 52, 91, 114, 341 Grassby, Al, 219, 269, 274 Graves, Robert, 352 Gray, Robert, 144, 145 Gray, Zane, 241

422 Grayson, Rex, 241 Great Big Australian Takeover Book, The (McCarthy), 57 Great Books Club (US), 365–6 Great Books Foundation, 367 Greater Glider Productions, 285, 287 Greaves,Vic, 332 Greder, Armin, 303 Green, Cliff, 297 Green, H.M., History of Australian Literature, 11 Greene, Graham, 352 Greenop, Frank, 242 Greenwood, Kerry, 99 Greenwood, Ted, 280, 296 Greer, Germaine, 54, 116, 142 Gregory, Dr Jenny, 332 Gregory’s street directories, 49 Grenville, Kate, 100 Australian/Vogel Literary Award, 161 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 141–2 The Idea of Perfection, 141 Orange Prize for Fiction, 141 The Secret River, 141–2 Grey, Tony, 115 Gribble, Diana, xii, 54, 61, 113–14, 299; see also McPhee Gribble Griffiths, Andy, 291, 312 Griffiths Geelong bookshop, 223 Grimwade, Sir Russell, 330 Groendahl, Jens, 117 Grose, Peter, 90 Grover, Marshall, 51–2 GST costs for booksellers, 213 impact on book industry, 166, 170, 238 Gunew, Sneja, 271 Gwynne, Philip, 309 H J Ashton Ltd, 303 H Pole & Co., 35 Hachette Livre, xii–xiii, 286 Haebich, Anna, 77 Haigh, Gideon, 116 Hale, Sylvia, 192 Hall, Rodney, 62, 74, 143, 144 Halligan, Marion, 140 Hall’s bookshop, 203, 210, 314 Halstead Press printery, 14, 16, 22, 26, 58, 60, 315, 358 Halstead Press ‘Classics’ series, 146 Hamilton, Ed, 325 Hamilton, Maggie, 96, 297 Hamilton, Margaret, 283, 289–90, 292 Hamlyn, Paul, 45 Hand that Signed the Paper,The (Demidenko), 100, 164–5 Hannan, Bill, 20 Hannan, Lorna, 20 Hans Christian Andersen Award, 283

Index Hansard, 340 Hanscombe, Gillian, 266 Happy Venture Readers (Schonell), 36, 316, 319 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ), 321, 327 HBJ Maths, 321 Harden, Dr E., 47 Harding, Lee, 283, 308 Hardy, Frank, 51, 249 Hardy, Thomas, 352 Haring, Don, 258 Harlequin Mills & Boon, 259 Harney, W.E., 241 Harper and Row, 327 HarperCollins Publishers Australia children’s publishing, 288 establishment, 227 Fox film development, 129 Golden Press as distributor, 227 market share, 83 takeover of Unwin Hyman trade publishing dominance, 87 website, 133 Harrap, Australian warehouse, 5 Harris, Christine, 287 Harris, David, 62, 280, 297, 304, 305, 306 Harris, Laura, 284, 309 Harris, Max, 18, 46, 168, 245–6, 252 Sun Books, 43–4 and Traditional Market Agreement, 206 Harris, Robert, 65 Harrison-Ford, Carl, 60 Harrower, Elizabeth, 60, 145 Harry Potter series, 86, 93, 97, 103, 128, 346 Hart, Jim, 107 Hart, Kevin, 144 Hart, Rita, 283 Hartnett, Sonya, 309 Hart-Smith, William, 145 Harwood, Gwen, 144, 145 Hasluck, Alexandra, 22 Hasluck, Nicholas, 76 Hathorn, Libby, 281, 287 Hating Alison Ashley (Klein), 308, 312 Hawkins, Andrew, 99 Hawthorne, Susan, 266 at Penguin, 192, 264, 265 on independent publishers, 194 see also Spinifex Press Hay, Sarah, 100 Haynes, Susan, 96 Heddle, Enid Moodie, 279 Heidi group, 216 Heidelberg Australia, 176 Heinemann Education, geography project with GTVA, 324 Heinemann Publishers, 6, 132 Come in Spinner, 47–8 Heiss, Anita, 189 Hemensley, Kris, 65 Herald book club, 214

Herald and Weekly Times group, 226 Herbert, Terry, 228–31 Herbert, Xavier, 13, 166, 174, 178 Miles Franklin Award, 143 Poor Fellow My Country, 143, 160 Soldiers’Women, 174–5 Hergenhan, Laurie, 74, 251 Herne, Karen, 271 Herring, Miss (bookseller), 216 Hesse, Herman, 352 Hewett, Dorothy, 69, 77 Hewett, Harry, 25–6 Hewitson, Ian, 103 Heyerdahl, Thor, 94, 344 Heyward, Michael, 114 Hibberd, Jack, 65 Hicks Smith & Sons, 68 Higgs, Kerryn, 58 Highton, Lisa, 281 Hill, Ernestine, 241, 242, 243 Hill of Content Bookshop (Melbourne), 94, 203, 214, 221 Hines, Sue, 99, 102–3 Hinkler Books, 288 Hinton, Denis, 325 Hodder & Stoughton, 283, 297 children’s list, 297 Critici in Erba Prize, 283 Hodder Headline children’s list, 287–8 distribution role, 86–7 market share, 83 Holland, Julia, 298 Holt, R.F., 270 Honour,Vic, 35 Hooker, John, 20 Hooton, Harry, 248 Hope, A.D., 144 Hopley, David, 328 Horder, Margaret, 279, 293–4 Hordern, Arthur, 14, 16, 17 Horne, Donald, 33, 44, 251, 254 Horton, David, 154 Horwitz House, 50 Horwitz Martin Education, 321 Horwitz, Peter, 257–8 Horwitz Publications, 50–2 acquisitions, 52 art books, 52 Carter Brown novels, 50–1 Commando/War series, 51 cover designs, 52 distribution by Gordon & Gotch, 52 educational publishing, 31, 52 Grahame Book Company purchase, 52 Horwitz Penguin titles, 51 magazine publishing, 52 merger with Ure Smith, 27 New American Library series, 50–1 Owen Martin imprint, 31, 52 Pocket Books, 51 pulp fiction, 50, 52

Index Scripts imprint, 51 Stag Modern series, 51 wartime novels, 52 Horwitz, Stanley, 50 Hospital, Janette Turner, 140, 143, 145 Houghton Mifflin, 327 Howard government, 168 Howarth, R.G., 245 Howie, Doug, 332–3 Hudson, Nick, 339 Hudson, Flexmore, 247 Hughes, Elizabeth, 10 Hughes, Robert, 142, 254 Hughes, Terry, 303, 304 Humphries, Barry, 142, 248 Hungerford, Tom, 145 Hurle, Garry, 312 Hurley, Michael, 266 Hutchins, Robert, 366 Hutchinson, Garrie, 65 Hyland House, 285 CBC awards, 285 establishment, 281 Indigenous poetry, 152 Hyperion Books for Children, 129 IAD Press, 112, 153, 189 editorial policy, 189–90 women’s writing, 265 Icon Books, 104 Idriess, Ion, 10, 18, 26, 242, 345 Iliffe, Bert, 59 illustrated books, 198–201, 293–4, 295, 300–1, 312–13; see also book design; picture books immigrant writers, see multicultural authors immigration, post-World War II, 268 import duty, 80, 212 import of books British publications dominate, 56, 202 early years, 3 greater than exports, 91 non-educational, xi indent procedure, 203–4 Independent Newspapers Limited (INL), 227 independent publishers, 9, 53–4, 56–7, 77–8, 106–7, 126–7, 133, 194, 320–1 Indigenous creative writing courses, 153 Indigenous people, employment and training, 111 Indigenous poetry, 152 Indigenous political debate, 151–2 Indigenous publishing, xii, 77, 111–13, 150–5, 194, 295; see also Aboriginal Studies Press; Black Ink Press; Fremantle Arts Centre Press; IAD Press; Magabala Books; University of Queensland Press

Indigenous staff in publishing industry, 153–4 Indigenous theatre, 69 Indigenous traditions and culture, 111 Indigenous writers, xii, 150–5, 190, 194, 282 Industries Assistance Commission, Report on the Publishing Industry, 80, 169 Ingamells, Rex, 248 Inglis, Fiona, 97 Ingpen, Robert, 280, 283, 311 Ingram, Anne Bower, xii, 219, 282, 286 Innes, Hammond, 361 Innes, Michael, 364 inquiries into publishing printers’ union, 8 Tariff Board (1945–46), 8 Institute for Aboriginal Development, 153 Institute of Family Studies, 342 Institute of Professional Editors, 175 international book fairs, 91 International Booksellers Federation, 224 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, 141 International Publishing Company (IPC), 35, 320 International Women’s Year (1975), 263 Internet bookselling via, 220 clash of academy and commercialisation, 131 see also e-books Invincible Press, 257 Ireland, David, 167 Miles Franklin Award, 143 Iremonger, John, 95, 96, 99; see also John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues Irving, Erica, 284, 309 see also Wagner, Erica Island Press, 151 Izod, Alan, 303 Izod, Olive, 303 J. Donne bookshop, 214 Jacaranda Press, 34–8, 151, 319, 320 commissioning, 317 educational publishing, 13, 31, 36, 58 Endeavour Language Program, 36 establishment, 5, 35, 38, 314 Jacaranda Atlas, 37, 319 Minenda Readers, 36, 319 ownership, 325 and Papua New Guinea education, 36 poetry of Oodgeroo (Kath Walker), 36–7, 152 publishing partnership with Cheshire, 319

423 purchase by Wiley, 326 reading program, 318–19 takeover by IPC, 320 Wilke purchase, 35 see also Clouston, Brian Jacaranda Wiley (now John Wiley), 326–8 acquisition of Brooks Waterloo, 327 Jack Maggs (Carey), 141, 196 Jack Rivers & Me (Radley), 100, 163, 165 Jackson, alice, 362 Jaivin, Linda, 115 Jam Roll Press, 285, 298 James, Ann, 283 James, Clive, 142 James Hardie Ltd, 43 James, Florence, 47–8, 140 James, Gwyn, 36, 293 Jeanneret, Marsh, 334 Jeffries, Barbara, 163 Jeffries, Hedley, 3 Jenkins, Wendy, 77 Jennings, Kate, 65 Jennings, Paul, 170, 284, 287, 295, 308, 309 Jesuit Institute for Social Order, 248 Jindiworobak movement, 247 Johansen, Graeme, 7, 9 John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat (Wagner & Brooks), 282 John Iremonger Award for Writing on Public Issues, 96 John Scott Educational, 210 John Wiley, xii Johns, Brian, 61, 109, 110, 308 Johns, W.E., 358 Johnson, (later Prof.) Frank, 36, 318, 319 Johnson, Les, 36 Johnson, Lois, 319 Johnson, Lou, 99 Johnston, George, 42, 51, 159 Miles Franklin Award, 143 My Brother Jack, 143 Johnston, Prof. Grahame, 23, 338 Johnstone, Leslie, 341 Joint Industry Study see Book Production in Australia: A Joint Industry Study (JIS) Jolley, Elizabeth, 76, 77, 140 Age Book of the Year Award, 144 Jolly, Ken, 303–4 Jones, Barry, 46, 216 Jones, Clyde, 163 Jones, Gail, 140 Jones, James, 361 Jones, Rod, 111, 183 Jones, Suzanne Holly, 64 Jose, Arthur, 174 Jose, Nicholas, 145 journalism, 246 journals, cost of access to, 136 Joyce, James, 171, 352

424 Joyce, Monica, 96 Julia Child Cookbook Award, 199 Junior Secondary Science Program (JSSP), 318 Jupp, James, 39 Jurgensen, Manfred, 269–70, 272 KG Murray (magazine group), 242 Kafka, Franz, 350, 352–3 Karmel Report into schools and libraries, 219 Kassorla, Irene, 65–6 Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, 287 Katharine Susannah Prichard House, 149 Keating government, 168 Keesing, Nancy, 163 Kefala, Antigone, 65 Kelleher,Victor, 283, 295, 308 Kelly, Matthew, 96 Kelly, Ned, 260–1 Kelly, Paul (political correspondent), 62 Kelly, Paul (singer/songwriter), 102 Keneally, Thomas, 141, 143, 167, 346, 352 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, 155 Kent, Jacqueline, 57, 189 Ker Wilson, Barbara, xii, 62, 280, 282–3, 285, 294, 296–8 Kermode, Frank, 244 Killeen, Gretel, 287, 291 Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, 111 Kimberley communities, 112 King, Geoffrey, 209 King, Stephen, 121 Kinsella, John, 77 Kirshbaum, Laurence, 118 Kitson, Jill, 140 Klein, Robin, 283, 284, 295, 309, 312 Knight, Al, 281 Knight, Linsay, 288 Knopf, see Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Koala Books, 286 Koch, Christopher, 145, 167 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Koolmatrie, Wanda, 348 Korda, Michael, 127 Koval, Ramona, 140 L&S Educational Supplies, 320 La Mama theatre (Melbourne), 63, 67, 109 Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Lawrence), 171, 212 Lagerlof, Selma, 357–8 Laird, Kenneth, 274 Laird, Patricia, 274 Lake, Max, 36 Lambert, James, 337 Lamond, Henry, 44 Lancashire, David, 109

Index Lane, (later Sir) Allen, on emergence of Australian publishing, 8–9; see also Penguin Books Langham, W.H., 374 Langley, Eve, 178, 178 language and ethnic groups in Australia, 275 Lansdowne Press, 38–41, children’s books, 294 critical essays by Dutton, 39 establishment, 5, 32–3, 38 illustrated sports books, 294 nationalist bias of list, 39, 42 Larkin, John, 287, 291 Latham, Mark, 330 Lawler, Ray, 70 Lawrence, D.H., 171 Lawson, Henry, 14, 116 le Carré, John, 351 Lee, Myra, 303, 304, 305 legal deposit, 379 Lehmann, Geoffrey, 144 Lennox, Rowena, 189 Leonard, Elmore, 351 Leonardo Bookshop, 214, 216 Lessing, Doris, 352 Lester, Alison, 283, 285 Let the Balloon Go (Southall), 291, 311 Lette, Kathy, 108, 111 letterpress printing, 54 Letters to Live Poets (Beaver), 144 Leunig, Michael, 114 Levien, Harold, 253 Lewis, Harold, 61 libraries, 373–80 acquisition of new bookstock, 376, 379 American Library Association poll on usage, 375 Australian publications preferred, 379 book-borrowing levels, 375 Challenging Australian History: Discovering New Narratives (conference), 378 children’s specialists, 281 commercial lending libraries, 345 country services, 374 criticism of, 373–4, 376 fiction borrowing rates, 346 funding of, 166, 172, 281, 376 interlibrary loans, 378 Koornang private library, 359 legal deposit, 379 literacy development programs, 377 local government responsibility for, 376–7 Melbourne Public Library, 216, 361 Mullens lending library, 215 Munn–Pitt Report, 373–4 National Library of Australia, 342, 378

public/municipal, 345, 361, 375 publishing role, 379–80 reports on, 373–4, 376 in schools, 281, 294, 374 State Acts to establish, 374–5 subscription, 373 see also Public Lending Right (PLR) Li, Cunxin, 298 Life of Books:The Story of D.W.Thorpe 1921–1987, A (Nicholson), 22 Lindsay, Joan, 34, 140 Lindsay, Norman, 10, 33, 39, 242, 307 Lineham bookshop, 214 Linehan & Shrimpton, 315 Lines, William, 95 literary agents, 82, 89, 90, 127, 193 literary awards, see awards and medals literary festivals, 156, 157, 158–9, 162, 172; see also Adelaide Writers’ Week literary hoaxes and impostures, 100, 348 Literature bookshop, 214, 216 Literature Board, 168 defended by writers, 168 establishment, 63, 159 funding to authors, 167–8 funding of journals, 273 grants to publishers, 80 outcomes, 168 promotional subsidies, 160 Residential Editorial Program (REP) at Varuna, 189 subsidies for poetry publication, 274 subsidies to printers, 64 surveys of bookselling, 207 see also National Book Council (NBC), 160 Literature Censorship Board, 171 Litlink (NSW regional writers centres), 148 Little Ark imprint, 97 Little Bookroom, 217–20 establishment, 218, 279 Little Bookroom,The (Farjeon), 296 Little Golden Books, 48–9, 356 Little Hare Books, 288 Living Verse (Thomson), 35, 317 Lloyd O’Neil Pty Ltd, 40, 60, 261–2 Australiana focus, 57–8 Children’s Library Guild of Australia, 219 education list, 40 George Philip atlas partnership, 40 sale to Penguin, 40 sales representatives, 91–2 see also Currey O’Neil; O’Neil, Lloyd London Book Stores, 223

Index Lonely Planet, xii, 105–8 Australian ownership, 86 establishment, 53 turnover, 83 see also Wheeler, Maureen; Wheeler, Tony Longman Australian warehouse, 5 children’s books, 294 Looking for Alibrandi (Marchetta), 286, 309 Lord of the Rings,The (Tolkien), 94, 128, 346 Lothian Books, xii, 22, 286 Lothian, John Inglis, xii, 286 Lothian, Louis, 286 Lothian, Peter, xii, 286 Louis Braille audio cassettes, 262 Love Me Sailor (Close), 69, 171 Lovecraft, H.P., 257 Lowe, Pat, 112–13 Lower, Lennie, 25, 33 Lucashenko, Melissa, 153, 189, 298 Lucky Country: Australia in the Sixties, The (Horne), 33 Ludlum, Robert, 351 Lukin-Amundsen, Judith, 185–6, 189 Lumby, Catherine, 102 Lurie, Morris, 62 Lynravn, Norman, 376 Lysenko, Myron, 273 Macarthur-Onslow, Annette, 295 MacCallum, Mungo Ballardie, 25, 46 MacDonald, Caroline, 309 Macdonnell, J.E., 52, 258 Machin, Sue, 312 Mack, Louise, 296 Mackarell, Bill, 85 Mackay, Robert, 45 Mackerell, Bill, 318 Mackintosh, David, 298, 312 MacLeod, Doug, 301 Macleod, Mark, 287–9 Macmillan Distribution Services (MDS), 186 MacMillan Limited (UK company), 185, 260 Macmillan Publishers Australia, 132, 294 Macquarie Dictionary, 37, 197, 327, 337–8 Macquarie University, 85 Magabala Books, xii, 111–13, 189, 295 bilingual books, 113 children’s books, 113, 286, 295 establishment, 111, 153 women’s writing, 265 see also Indigenous publishing magazines post-war publication, 239–40 wartime publication, 239 see also periodicals

Magic Pudding,The (Lindsay), 10, 307, 311, 313 Mahony, Frank, 261 Mahyuddin, Jan, 271 Mailer, Norman, 361 Maitland, Barry, 99 Makine, Andre, 116–17 Maloney, Shane, 115 Malouf, David, 62, 74, 141, 346, 352 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 144 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, 141, 161 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, 141 Miles Franklin Award, 143 Mama, La see La Mama theatre Manfield, Christine, 198, 199 Manley, Ruth, 283, 297 Manne, Robert, 114, 115 manuscript acceptance/acquisition, 82, 298, 309, 317 Mappin, Alf, 305 Marchetta, Melina, 286 Margaret Hamilton Books, 285, 303 Margaret K. McElderry imprint, 312 Margareta Webber Bookshop, 214–17 Mark Macleod Books, 287–8 Marks, Don, 315 Marr, David, 95, 145 Marric, J.J., 360 Marsden, John, 284, 287, 295, 311 Marshall, Alan, 20, 167, 345 Marshall, Simpkin, 215 market size, 89, 91 Martin, Alan, 330 Martin, David, 99, 145, 283, 297 Martin Education, 52 Martin, Jesse, 101 Martin, Owen, 315 Martinez, Manuel Luis, 117 Mary Martin bookshops, 223 Mary Ryan bookshop, 208 Masters, Olga, 140, 145 Matthews, Brian, 111 Matthews, Jill, 96 Mattingley, Christobel, 296 May Gibbs Trust (Adelaide), 149 Mayer, Henry, 39, 62 Maza, Bob, 69 McAuley, James, 22–3, 144, 250 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 McCarthy, Gordon, 57, 58 McCarthy, Maureen, 309 McColvin, Lionel, 374, 375 McConnan, Nancy, 69 McCullough, Colleen, 62, 140 McCutcheon, Sandy, 140 McDonald, Elizabeth, 22 McDonald, Nan, 10, 144 McDonald, Roger, 74

425 McFarlane, Bruce, 20 McGahan, Andrew, 97, 102, 143, 161 McGills bookshop, 203 McGraw-Hill, 31, 132, 325 McGuinness, Joe, 153 McGuire, James, 246 McLaren, John, 29, 252 McLaren, Philip, 113 McLean, Alistair, 361 McLennan, Bill, 223 McLeod, Alexander, 34 McLeod’s Bookshop, 34, 35, 38, 314 McLeod’s (publisher) educational list, 5 McMaster, Rhyll, 144 McNulty, C.S., 48 McPhee Gribble, xii, 102, 108–11, 183, 307 co-publishing with Penguin, 109–10, 307 distribution by Penguin, 62 establishment, 53, 106, 108 ‘feminist publisher’, 184 mistakes, 182–3 sale to Penguin, 110, 113, 175 see also The Text Media Group McPhee, Hilary, xii, 54, 61, 108, 110, 127, 175, 299 at Penguin, 175 support of Modjeska, 185 see also McPhee Gribble McPherson’s Limited, 186 McPherson’s Printing Group, 186 McQueen, Humphrey, 20 McRae, Rodney, 285 McVitty, Lois, 284 McVitty, Walter, 284 Mead, Rod, 318 Meanjin, 20, 175, 240, 244–5, 248 Meares, Leonard (‘Marshall Grover’), 51, 259 Mears, Gillian, 97, 100, 143 Mechanics Institutes, 379; see also libraries Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, 146 media studies, 348 Meeks, Raymond, 304 Melbourne Critical Review, 251 Melbourne Public Library, 216, 361 Melbourne Technical College, 21; see also RMIT University Melbourne Realist Writers group, 249 Melbourne University Press (MUP), xii, 13, 36, 329, 330 biographers, 330 bookshop, 329, 330 CD ROM titles, 132 contribution to Australian culture, 335 directors, 329 editors at, 22 establishment, 329

426 history list, 329–30 Miegunyah Press imprint, 330 Melbourne University Publishing, 330 Melbourne Writers’ Festival, 158 Memoirs (Vaux), 336 Menzies government’s conservatism, 253 Menzies, Robert, 11, 32, 245, 356 Meredith, Gwen, 18 Messell, Prof. Harry, 317 Messitte, Anne, 129 Methodist Bookshops, 203 Methold, Ken, 168 Methuen Publishing Ltd, 68, 281 Meyer, Dr Rex, 317 Michener, James, 361 Michie, John, 282 Mickler, Steve, 77 Microsoft, 118 Microsoft Reader program, 120 Migrant Women Writers’ Group, 274 Miles Franklin Award, 77, 100, 115, 142, 143, 159, 160, 179 Milgrom, Alfred (Fred), 63, 65 Miller, Alex, 100, 141, 143 Miller, Harry Tatlock, 215 Miller, Henry, 171 Miller, Morris, Bibliography of Australian Literature, 11 Milner, Sally, 192 Mimosa Publications, 322 Minenda Readers series (Johnson), 36 Mirabella, Guy, 198–200 Misto, John, 71 Mitchell, A.G., 29 Mitchell, Prof. Alex, 337 Mitchell, Elyne, 311 Mitchell, Margaret, 361 Mitchell, Peter Stuckey, 366–7 Modern Publishing Group, 262 Modjeska, Drusilla, 111, 185–9 Molesmorth,Vol, 257 Molnar, George, 18 Moloney, James, 285, 298 Monarch Books (US publisher), 51 Monkey Grip (Garner), 108, 140 Monsarrat, Nicholas, 344, 360–1 Moomba Festival, 32 Moorehead, Alan, 116, 156 Moorhead, Finola Moorhouse, Frank, 62, 167, 252 The Americans, Baby, 58 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Dark Palace, 143 The Electrical Experience, 145 Futility & Other Animals, 58 Grand Days, 143 Morgan, Sally, 77, 152, 285, 352 Morgan’s Bookshop, 203 Morphett, Tony, 33 Morris, E.E., 336 Morris, Jill, 285 Morris, Mary, 71

Index Morrison, Alistair (‘Afferbeck Lauder’), 28 Morrison, John, 145 Morrison, Sally, 110 Morrissey, Di, 140 Mortimer, Nancy, 308 Moss, Peter, 275 Mother I’m Rooted (Jennings, ed.), 65, 263 Moving into Maths scheme, 40 Mudie, Ian, 42, 44, 157, 280 Muecke, Stephen, 77, 152–3 Muir, Marcie, 310 Mulga Bill’s Bicycle (Niland & Niland), 282, 295 Mullens lending library, 215 Muller, Laurie, 195, 196–7, 331 Munn–Pitt Report on libraries, 373–4 Multicultural Arts Geelong project, 275 multicultural authors, 268–76 multicultural literature, 268–76, 286 Anglo perspective, 272 anthologies, 269–72 beyond social history, 271 documentation difficult, 276 journals, 272–3 non-English publications, 269 poetry, 273–4 writing within ethnic communities, 275 multicultural playwrights, 69–70 Multicultural Writers’ Association, 274, 275 multilingual books, 281 multinational media conglomerates books as media ‘content’, 126 profits of publishing divisions, 127 Mund, Henry, 179–80 Munn–Pitt report on libraries, 166 Munro, Craig, 193 Murdoch, Ian, 71, 72 Murdoch, Walter, 248 Murnane, Gerald, 145 Murray, Les, 140, 142, 144, 145 Murray Publishers, 226 Murray-Smith, Joanna, 69 Murray-Smith, Stephen, 249, 339 Murray Whelan detective series, 115 My Place (Morgan), 77, 152, 285, 298 My Place (Wheatley, Rawlins), 219–20, 283, 295 Nagle, Bill, 61 Namjoshi, Suniti, 265 Namoi, Angela, 99, 104 Nangun, Butcher Joe, 153 Nannup, Alice, 153 Napster, 134 Nation, 249, 253–4 Nation Review, 58, 108, 254 National Library of Australia, 342

National Benchmarks (curriculum), 323–4 National Book Council (NBC), 147, 159–62, 224 Australian Book Week promotion, 160 awards, 142, 160, 161 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145, 160, 161, 188 ‘Buy Australian Books’ TV campaign, 160 establishment, 80 funding withdrawn, 162 Manuscript Assessment Service, 162 see also Literature Board National Book Trade Seminar (1972), 79 National Centre for Australian Studies (Monash University), 176 National Gallery of Australia, 342 National Library of Australia, 342, 378 National Science Curriculum Materials project, 37 National Word Festival (Canberra), 158 nationalism, 32, 38, 47, 57, 66, 300 Naylor, Marilyn, 297 Neidjie, Bill, 112 Neilly, Andrew, 327 Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction, 142, 188 Neville, Richard, 171, 255 New, David, 334 New South Wales Bookstall Company, 257 New South Wales Education Department, 316 Newman, Clive, 77 News Corporation, 87, 129, 226–7; see also content streaming; HarperCollins News Ltd, 49 Niall, Brenda, 145, 330 Nibbi, Gino, 216 Nicholls, Alan, 29 Nicholls, Bron, 308 Nicholson, John, 285, 291 Nicholson, Joyce Thorpe, 22, 78, 80, 279; see also DW Thorpe Nielsen BookScan, 81, 92, 235, 238 Nieman, John adult reading, 360–1 book collection, 356–8 early reading experience, 356 library borrowing, 359–60 Niland, D’Arcy, 17, 51, 178, 242 Niland, Deborah, 282, 295, 297 Niland, Kilmeny, 282, 295, 297 Nimrod Street Theatre (Sydney), 67; see also Stables Nita B. Kibble Award for Women Writers, 188 No Regrets, 264 Nobel Prize in Literature, 141, 145 Nolan, Sidney, 246

Index Noonan, Michael, 285, 298 Noonuccal, Oodgeroo, 33, 328 see also Walker, Kath Norman, Lilith, 282 Northern Rivers Writers Centre, 148 Nowra, Louis, 62, 69, 70 Noyce, Phil, 141 NSW Premier’s Literary Award, 95, 142, 155, 160, 188 Nutcote (Sydney), 149 Nyland, Mary Townes, 289 Oakman, Harry, 328 O’Brien, J.M.S., 251 O’Brien, John, 332 obscenity, 69, 166 Observer, 249, 253, 254 Odgers, Sally, 297, 300 O’Donovan, Anne, 37 Of Primary Importance, 321 Office of Film and Literature Classification, 171 offshore printing, 36, 39–40, 43, 54–5, 75, 176–7, 279, 320 O’Grady, Desmond, 29 O’Grady, John, 28 early writing, 24 ‘Nino Culotta’ and true identity, 27–8 They’re a Weird Mob, xiii, 7, 24–30, 32, 346 They’re a Weird Mob stage play, 28 They’re a Weird Mob Vietnam show, 28 O’Grady, John Jnr., 24–5 O’Hara, John, 361 Oldmeadow Booksellers, 210 Oldmeadow, Court, 304 Oldmeadow, Joyce, 304 Oliver & Boyd, 316 Omnibus Books, xii, 281, 284, 299–302 co-publishing with Penguin, 309 and Scholastic Australia, 303 on-line contracts, 135–6 On Our Selection (Rudd), 24, 26 One Woolly Wombat (Trinca & Argent), 299–300, 301–2 O’Neill, Angeline, 77 O’Neil, Janet, 38 O’Neil, Lloyd, xii, 107 at A&R’s Sydney bookshop, 38 assoc. dir. of Penguin, 40 Cassell rep, 38 early years, 38, 180 at Jacaranda, 35 and Lansdowne, 5, 32–3, 38–41, 75 see also Lloyd O’Neil Pty Ltd on-line promotion, 132–4 open archive movement, 136; see also scholarly publishing Orange Prize for Fiction, 141 Orchard, The (Modjeska), xiii, 185–8 Original Novels Foundation, 257, 258

Orion Publishing Group, 93, 98, 104 O’Rourke, Kerry, 77 Orwell, George, 359 Outback Press, xii, 61, 63–6 Circus Books (paperback imprint), 66 establishment, 53, 54, 63, 106 Melbourne House (London), 66 Outrider: A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia, 269, 269–70, 272–3 Outrider: Australian Writing Now (Jurgensen & Adamson, eds), 272–3 Outrider 90: A Year of Australian Literature (Jurgensen, ed.), 273 Overland, 248, 249 Outlook, 249–50 overseas editions, 310–13 Owen Martin, 31, 52; see also Martin Education Oxford University Press (OUP), 13, 22–3, 155, 160 Australian editions of dictionaries, 338 and Australian National Dictionary Centre, 338 Australian titles, 22 children’s books imported, 293 children’s list, 218, 283 dependence on imported list, 23 establishment in Australia, 6, 21, 329 profitability, 283 purchase of Sydney University Press, 334 Pacific Magazines and Printing, 227 Packer, Sir Frank, 47, 362 A&R takeover bid, 17, 18–19, 57 Packer Publications, 47–9; see also Consolidated Press Ltd Page, Geoff, 145 Page, Michael, 42, 280 Palmer, Helen, 249 Palmer, Nettie, 217 Palmer,Vance, 217, 241, 242 Pan Macmillan establishment, 185 market share, 83 subsidiary of MacMillan Limited, 185 paper consumption of, 119 limited Australian production post-WWII, 357 price, 320 paperbacks, 13 B-format, 56 increasing significance, 55–6, 108 offset from hardbacks, 55 usual format, 125 ‘vertical integration’, 55–6 Paramount Restaurant (Sydney), 199

427 Park, Ruth, 62, 159, 178, 280, 281, 283, 295, 296, 309, 311 CBC Book of the Year Award, 281 and Horwitz, 51 support of A&R, 17 Parr, Edgar, 214–15, 217 Parr’s bookshop, 214 Parry, Glyn, 287 Parsons, Harriet, 72 Parsons, Nicholas, 72 Parsons, Dr Philip, 67, 71, 72 Pascoe, Bruce, 113 Patchett, Mary Elwyn, 311 Patkin, A.L., 244 Patrick White Award, 142, 145, 161 Patterson, Barbara (later Blackman), 247 Paul Hamlyn, mass-market children’s books, 294 Pavey, Peter, 281 PDA see also Personal Digital Assistant Pearl, Cyril, 28, 33 Pearson Education, 87 Pender, Lydia, 282 Penguin Books Australia Aboriginal women’s writing list, 265 Allen Lane imprint, 56 Aussie Bites series, 309 Aussie Chomps series, 309 Aussie Nibbles series, 309 Australian list, 61–2 Australian Penguins, 56, 175 Australian Puffin Club, 282 Australian Puffin list, 282 Australian Women’s Library, 264 awards, 309 bestsellers, 33 CBC awards, 282 children’s editorial department, 309 children’s list, 282, 283–4, 286–7 Classics, 345 co-editions and buy-ins, 309 commissioning, 88 co-publishing with McPhee Gribble, 108, 109–10, 282 co-publishing with Omnibus Books, 309 cover design, 51 distribution for other publishers, 62, 77, 88, 109–10 educational titles, 53 establishment, 6, 43 general publishing, 53 Horwitz Penguin titles, 51 imports as basis of turnover, 62 Indigenous list, 152, 155, 265 market share, 83 and McPhee Gribble, 108, 109, 307 marketing, 308 paperbacks, 56, 284 picture books, 307, 308, 309

428 publisher’s and editor’s role at, 192 Puffin book club, 304, 307 Puffins, 307 purchase of Lloyd O’Neil, 40 Robbery Under Arms film tie-in, 262 sales, 87–8 senior management, 88 staff and training, 87, 88 teenage ficion, 308 trade publishing dominance, 87 turnover from Australian titles, 88 website, 133 wholesaling, 209 Young Adult ficion, 308 Penguin Books (UK) Puffin Club, 307 Penton, Brian, 47 perfect binding, 50 Pergamon Press Australia, 20–1 Perkins, Athol, 330 periodicals, 239-57 academic journals, 251, 256 anti-communist, 250 avant-garde, 246–7, 248 Catholic philosophy and ethics, 255 commercial magazines, 240, 242 conservative, 250–1 cultural reviews, 240 gay and lesbian, 266 intellectual, 255 literature, art and discussion, 244–6, 252–3, 256 ‘little magazines’, 240, 246, 256 multicultural, 272–3 opinion and public affairs, 247–8 poetry, 247, 250–1, 252–3 political, 249–50 popular art, 246 post-war changes, 255–6 public affairs journals, 249 public opinion, 253–4 quarterlies, 248, 253 satire, 255 significance for writers, 239 story magazines, 241 writers’ magazines, 240 see also magazines Perlman, Eliot, 141 Perry, Grace, 253 Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), 122 Phantom Books, 258 Phelan, Nancy, 145 Phillips, A.A., 261 Phillips, Sandra, 153–4 Phipson, Joan, 218, 280, 294, 311, 312 Phoenix Publications, 270, 273 Picnic at Hanging Rock (Lindsay), 34, 140 Picoult, Jodi, 99–100 pictorial reading practices, 346–7

Index picture books, 279, 280, 287, 294–5, 299, 309; see also children’s book publishing; illustrated books Pidgeon, William (‘Wep’), 24 Pike, Douglas, 330 Pike, Jimmy, 112–13 Pilkington, Doris, 141, 153 Pinkney, John, 284 Pitt, Stan, 52 Pittock, Albert, 315 Playbox theatre, 67, 70; see also Malthouse Theatre Playfair, Lou, 99 plays published and performed, 33, 63, 265 poetry by Angus & Robertson, 62 awards, 142 by FACP, 76 by Jacaranda Press, 36 multicultural writers, 273–4 by Omnibus, 299 by Outback Press, 64, 65 performances, 273 prizes for, 143–4 reduced demand for, 346 by Sisters, 264 by Sun Books, 46 by UQP, 33, 74 Poetry (magazine), 239, 240, 247 Poetry Magazine, 253 Poetry Society of Australia, 252 Poor Fellow My Country (Herbert), 143, 160 Pople, Maureen, 285, 298 Poppy (Modjeska), 185 popular fiction, defined, 369 pornography, 259 Porter, Dorothy, 140 Porter, Hal, 167, 178 Porter, Peter, 142, 144 Portnoy’s Complaint (Roth), 212 Possum Magic (Fox), 295, 300 Postmaster-General’s Department, 171 Powell, Gareth, 58 Powell, Michael, 28 The Power of One (Courtenay), 298, 346 Powers, John, 222 Practical Puffins series, 282 Pram Factory theatre (Melbourne), 63, 109 premier’s awards, 95, 142, 155, 160, 172, 188 Prentice Hall, xii, 31, 52, 87, 325 Presbyterian Bookroom, 203 Price, Derek, 303 Price, Hugh, 333 Price Milburn, 333 Price, Rosalind, xii, 97, 98, 99, 285 prices, 55, 79, 345 of imported books, 206 see also resale price maintenance; ‘Statement of Terms’

Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA), 207 Prichard, Katharine Susannah, 13, 60, 166, 242 Primary Education publishing, 320 Primary English Teachers’ Association (PETA), 324 primary schools, teaching materials, 315 Primrose Pottery Shop, 215 Pringle, Rosemary, 96 print on demand (POD), 124–5 print runs, 83 printers, 22, 176 printing in Asia, 36, 39–40, 43, 54–5, 75, 176–7, 186, 279, 320 Book Bounty, 75, 165, 169, 176, 186 colour reproduction improvements, 294–5 letterpress, 54 in 1940s, 357 offset, 54–55 rotary offset lithography, 357 separate from publishing, 176, 341 value per annum, 176 see also Book Production in Australia: A Joint Industry Study (JIS) Printing Industry Competitiveness Scheme, 170 Prior, Natalie Jane, 285 prizes BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, 142 Bologna Ragazzi Prize, 303 Booker Prize, 141, 161 Christina Stead Prize, 142 Commonwealth Writers Prize, 115, 141–2, 161 Critici in Erba Prize, 283 Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction, 188 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 142, 143–4, 159 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, 155 Nettie Palmer Prize for Nonfiction, 142, 188 Nobel Prize in Literature, 141, 145 Orange Prize for Fiction, 141 by Sydney Morning Herald, 159 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, 142 see also awards and medals production changes, 54, 328 standards, 22, 91, 292 professional writing courses, 82 Profile Books, 104 Project Gutenberg, 121 promotion of, 159, 160, 161, 187; see also National Book Council (NBC)

Index Proulx, Annie, 97, 103 pseudonyms, 52, 258, 267, 360 Public Lending Right (PLR), 80, 82, 165, 168, 281; see also libraries Publish Australia Export Collective, 169 publisher role in company, 191, 192 women, 295 see also editors Publishers Association Committee, 6; see also Australian Book Trade Advisory Committee Publishers Association (UK), 204 ‘publisher’s pitch’, 90 publishing capital-intensive activity, 330 concentration of ownership, 126 competitive aspect, 89 decision-making process, 193 feminist, 263–7 financial risk, 192 ‘general’ vs ‘educational’ branches, 175 by government departments, 341, 342–3 individualistic profession, 192–3 overseas domination, 9 post-war growth, xi, 4, 86, 224 problems, 335 profitability, 84 scale and significance of industry, 169 Traditional Market Agreement, 3–4, 8, 9 see also children’s book publishing; educational publishing; general publishing; rights; trade publishing publishing committee, 193 publishing companies Australian-owned, 86 as ‘carriers of content’, 131–2 dominant firms, 87 educational services on websites, 132 fewer of large size, 83 financial pressures, 328 impact of mergers and takeovers, 127 Joint Industry Study (JIS), 85–9 ‘larrikin publishers’, 180 male-dominated, 299 market research lacking, 236 multinationals, 86, 126–7 rationalisation and takeovers of companies, 230, 320 staffing, 84–5 subcontracting, 84 women’s roles, 299 see also independent publishers Publishing Industry, Report on the (Industries Assistance Commission), 80, 169 pulp fiction, 257–9

Quadrant, 248, 250–1, 250 Quarterly Essay, 66 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 142 Queensland Book Depot, 203 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, 160, 172 Queensland Writers Centre, 112, 168 Quentaris Chronicles,The, 259, 286 RadioPaper, 123 Radley, Jack, 163, 165 Radley, Paul, 100, 163, 165 Raggatt, Harold, 39 Randall, D’Arcy, 298 Random House, 266, 287 AtRandom e-books, 122 children’s publishing, 287–8 gay and lesbian books, 266 Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, 287 Mark Macleod Books, 287 market share, 83 movie art on covers, 129 trade publishing dominance, 87 Rare Books Collection (Matheson Library, Monash University), 47 Rathdowne Books, 96 Rawlins, Donna, 220, 283, 295 Rayson, Hannie, 69, 71 readers, 149–50, 187–8, 310–13, 346, 349–55, 368–72 see also audience development Reader’s Digest, 297–8 reading, 316, 324, 344–55, 368–72 reading programs, 318–19 Reading the Country (Muecke, Roe & Benterrak), 77, 152–3 Readings bookshop, 208 Reece, Jim, 303 Reed & Harris publishing, 246 Reed Books, 58, 102 sale of Jacaranda and Cheshire, 320 takeover of IPC, 320 and Text Publishing, 114 Reed International, language programs, 321 Reed, John, 216, 246 Reed, Sunday, 216 Rees, Leslie, 279 Rees, Lu, 305, 310 Reid, Alan, 49 Reid, Barrett, 163 Reid, Barrie, 247 Reilly, Matthew, 140 remainder bookselling, 230 Removalists, The (Williamson), 67, 69 resale price maintenance, 55, 79, 169, 204–5, 209, 222 research and surveys on book industry, 81–5 Residential Editorial Program (at Varuna; Allen & Unwin), 101–2, 189

429 retail bookselling, see bookselling retail price maintenance, see resale price maintenance retailing, 82, 127 reviews of books, 157 Reynolds, Henry, 95 Richardson, Henry Handel, 44, 116 Riddell, Elizabeth, 145 Riemer, Andrew, 120–1 Rigby Limited, 33, 41, 43, 262, 280, 294, 321 Adelaide book retailer, 41, 42 Australiana focus, 57–8 bookshop, 203, 314 children’s books, 280–1, 294 educational publishing, 5, 13, 31, 53 general publishing, 42, 43, 53 interstate branches, 42 James Hardie takeover, 43, 57, 280 O’Neil titles, 40 publishing committee, 43 Rosella factory premises, 43 schoolbooks, 42 staff, 42 see also Branson,Vernon Rigby, William Charles, 41 rights, British Empire, 8; see also Traditional Market Agreement Ritchie, Albert, 10, 14, 15 Ritchie, John, 330 RMIT Publishing electronic publishing, 333, 335 Informit imprint, 333 RMIT University, 85 Co-Operative Society, 222 Graduate Program in Publishing Studies, 81 road maps and atlases, 40 Robbery Under Arms (Boldrewood), 260–2 cover design, 261, 262 editions and reprints, 260–2 film rights, 261 original publication, 260 Robbins, Harold, 346, 351 Roberts, Shelley, 223 Robertson, Keith, 108 Robertson & Mullens bookseller, 16, 221, 315 Robertson, George, 10, 14–15, 174 Robinson, Maurice E., 302 Robinson, Philip, 79 Robinson, Richard (Dick), 302 Robinson, Roland, 46, 145 Rocket E-book, 120, 122 Rodda, Emily, 62, 287, 310; see also Rowe, Jenny Roderick, Colin, 10, 13, 17, 24–5; see also Angus & Robertson Rodgers, Gregory, 287, 298 Rodriguez, Judith, 265 Roe, Paddy, 77, 152–3 Rolls, Eric, 296 Romanos, Jack, 118

430 Ronai, Kay, 282, 283–4, 308 Rorabacher, Louise E., 269 Rose, Meredith, 189 Roth, Kingsley, 23 Roth, Philip, 212, 347 Roughsey, Dick (Goolbalathaldin), 219, 282 Rowe, Jennifer (‘Emily Rodda’), 62, 99, 280, 287, 297 Rowling, J.K., 103 Roy, Arundhati, 159 Royal Court Theatre (London), 67 royalties to authors, 303, 305 Rubinstein, Gillian, 284, 285, 295, 302, 309, 312 Rudd, Steele, 24, 33 Ruhen, Carl, 52 Ruhen, Olaf, 280, 296 Russell, Bertrand, 94 Ryan, Peter, 168, 329 Ryckmans, Pierre, 378 Sadgrove, Brian, 44 sales representatives, 91–2 Salamanca Writers’ Festival (Hobart), 158 Salinger, J.D., 171 Sallis, Eva, 100 Salom, Phil, 77 Sassoon, Beverly, 61 Sassoon,Vidal, 61 Saturday Centre of Poetry (SCOP), 274 Saxby, Joyce Boniwell, 280, 296 Saxby, Maurice, 280, 289 Sayer, Mandy, 100 Sayers, Dorothy, 351 Scharf, Rita, 283 Schiffrin, André, 127 scholarly publishing, declining market, 73; see also open archive movement; university presses Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd, 302–6 Ashton Scholastic, 304 Australian Standing Orders, 305 awards, 304, 305 Bologna Ragazzi Prize, 303 book clubs, 286, 303–6 Book Fair operation, 305 CD ROMs, 132 children’s publishing focus, 306 Dromkeen Homestead, 304 purchase of Bookshelf, 305 purchase of M & M Educational Suppliers, 305 purchase of Margaret Hamilton Books, 305 purchase of Oldmeadow Booksellers, 304 purchase of Omnibus Books, 303 Star Book Club, 305 trade publishing, 304, 306 Wombat Book Club, 305 see also Ashton Scholastic Scholastic Inc., 302, 306

Index Scholastic International Division, 304 Schonell, Prof. (later Sir) Fred, 35–6, 316 school textbooks, 35, 77 Schroeder, Patricia, 118–19 Schwartz and Wilkinson, 66 Schwartz Bantam, 66 Schwartz, Morry, 54 Schwartz Publishing, 66 Unicorn Books (paperback imprint), 66 see also Black Inc.; Outback Press Schwehr, Ernest, 303 Scott, Bill, 35 Scott Educational, 210 Scott, John A., 111, 115 Scott, Kim, 77, 143, 153 Scott, Prof. Ted, 318 Scott-Maxwell, Aline, 71 Scripsi (literary journal), 114, 256 Scullin, J.H., 166 Scutt, Jocelynne (‘Melissa Chan’), 267 Sea Cruise, 265 Searle, Geoffrey, 330 Searle, Paul, 325 Secret River,The (Grenville), 141–2 self-publishing, 82 selling process, 91–2 Semler, Bruce, 59 Serle, Geoffrey, 145 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Sessions, Robert, 281, 282, 284, 309 set texts, 77 Sewell, Stephen, 69 Shakespeare Head Press (SHP), 17, 48–9, 315 Shapcott, Tom, 33, 144, 168 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 Patrick White Award, 145 Shapiro, Selma, 141 Sharma, Bulbul, 265 Sharp, Martin, 255 Shaw, Peter, 223 Sheahan, Robyn, 285, 298 Sheahan-Bright, Robyn, 189 Shearer, Jill, 69 Shearers bookshop, 208 Sheldon, Sydney, 351 Sheldrake, Pam, 307 Sherrington, Miss (bookseller), 216 Shields, Carol, 97 Shiva,Vandana, 265 Shore, Arnold, 217 Shute, Nevil, 344, 361 Sillitoe, Allan, 361 Simes, Gary, 337 Simon & Schuster content streaming strategy, 129 e-books, 118, 122 market share, 83 Simpson, Colin, 10 Sims, Bruce mentor to editors, 189 at Penguin, 192

Singer, Peter, 114 Sisters Publishing Ltd, 264 Skrzynecki, Peter, 270, 272 Slamen, Frederick Henry (Harry), 221, 222 Slessor, Kenneth, 17, 245 Slocum, Joshua, 116 Smith, Bernard, 22, 145, 242 Smith, Craig, 284, 301, 309 Smith, George, 44 Smith, June, 292 Smith,Vivian, 145 Smith, Wilbur, 346, 351 So Much To Tell You (Marsden), 284, 295 SoftBook (Gemstar International), 120 Soldiers’Women (Herbert), 174–5 Solomon, Charmaine, 102 Somare, Michael, 328 Somerset Celebration of Literature, 288 Sony Reader, 124 South Australian Biennial Literary Awards, 160 Southall, Ivan, 13, 62, 178, 218, 280, 283, 291, 294, 296, 310–11 Simon Black series, 311 Southern Cross University Press, 33 Speagle’s Bookshop, 217 Spears, Steve, 65 Spence, Eleanor, 23, 219 Spencer, A.H. (Bertie), 221 Spender, Dale, 264, 266 Spengler, Oswald, 94 spin-offs, 140, 358 Spinifex Press, 265–6 website and hyperlinks, 133, 266 Stables theatre, 67 Standard Books, 203, 210 Star Book Club, 305 Starr Report, 119 State Library of Victoria (SLV), 379–80 Australian Centre for Youth Literature, 380 Cyberpoet site, 380 Premier’s Literary Awards, 380 Statement of Terms and Conditions for the Sale in Australia of New Books Published in Australia or in the UK, 5, 55, 169, 203, 205 statistics adult fiction, 236–7 adult non-fiction, 236 by Australian Booksellers Association, 207 by Australian Bureau of Statistics, 207, 235, 287 by Australian Publishers Association (APA), 207 Australian-produced titles, 4 on bestsellers, 235 book-buyers in population, 345 children’s books, 237–8 costs, 85

Index employment patterns, 84 exports, 82 general book sales, 83 Literature Board surveys, 207 profitability of industry, 84 sales estimates (1990), 207 sales per title, 82 titles published, 84 Stead, Christina, 60, 61, 142, 145, 178 Steel, Ron, 221, 222 Steele, Mary, 285 Steele Rudd Award, 142–3 Steinbeck, John, 361 Stephens, A.G., 174 Stephensen, P.R. (‘Inky’), 16–17 Stevns, Niels, 162 Steward, Jenny, 115 Stewart, Douglas, 144, 178, 240, 260–1, 296 Stewart, J.I.M. (‘Michael Innes’), 364 Stivens, Dal, 145 stock management, 88 stockholdings, 204 Stoll, Charles, 326, 327 Stone, Gerry, 36 Stone, Walter, 245 Stonier, Brian Macmillan Australia, 45 Sun Books, 43–4, 45, 47 Story of Karrawingi the Emu, The (Rees), 279 Stow, Randolph, 143, 145 Stravinsky’s Lunch (Modjeska), 185 structural editing, 189–90 Strutt, william, 261 Stubbs, John, 39 style guides, 22, 339 subsidies, 66 Sugar and Snails, 264 Summers, Anne, 56 Sun Books, 33, 44–6 ‘All Colour Paperbacks’, 45–6 establishment, 43–4 nationalist bias of list, 47 Sunpapermacs imprint, 45 21st birthday, 46–7 see also Dutton, Geoffrey; Harris, Max; Stonier, Brian Sun on the Stubble,The (Thiele), 280, 294 surveys and research on book industry, 81–5 on reading habits, 344–5 Sutherland, Wendy, 16 Suzuki, David, 97 Swain & Co, 16 Swain, Arthur (‘Mick’), 16 Sweeney, Leonie, 304 Sybylla Co-operative Press, 264, 265 Sydney Technical College, 332 Sydney University, see University of Sydney Sydney University Co-Operative Society, 211, 222

Sydney University Press (SUP), 333–4 Sykes, Roberta, 101 Syred, Celia, 296 Tabberer, Maggie, 101 TAFE colleges, creative writing courses, 147 takeovers, 12, 13–18, 19, 43, 57, 83, 87 Talbot, Colin, 63, 64, 65 Talk (magazine), 239, 240, 243 Tan, Shaun, 286 Tanner, Jane, 309, 310 Tantrum Press, 264, 265 Tariff Board inquiry into Australian publishing, 4, 8 tariffs, 4, 8 Tasker, Cathy, 286 tax on books, 212–13; see also GST Taylor, Alf, 113 Taylor, Jean (‘Emily George’), 264 Technical Book and Magazine Company, 203 technological advances, 90–1 technological protection measures, 135 television impact on publishing and reading, 13, 50, 52, 259, 371–2 novelisation of series, 61 spin-offs from books, 140 Temple, Peter, 115, 116 Templeman, Ian, 76, 77 Tennant, Kylie, 60, 167, 178 Teo, Hsu-Ming, 100 territorial copyright, 169, 197; see also copyright tertiary institutions, creative writing courses, 147 Text Media Group, The establishment, 110, 113–14 purchase by Fairfax Group, 117 see also McPhee Gribble text messaging, 347 Text Publishing, 113–17 website, 133 see also Beecher, Eric; Gribble, Diana; Heyward, Michael textbook publishing imports post-WWII, 314 primary school, 315–16 secondary school, 314–15 by state education departments, 315, 316 see also educational publishing textbooks acquisition by school students, 317–18 set texts, 317 Thatcher, Miss (bookseller), 216 Theodore, E.G., 47, 362 They’re a Weird Mob (O’Grady) Angus & Robertson rejected, 10 bestseller, 346 movie, 28

431 publication history, 24–30 reprints and sales figures, xiii, 7, 25, 26–7, 32 reviews of, 28–9 stage play, 28 Theroux, Paul, 352 Thiele, Colin, 218, 280, 284, 290–1, 294, 311 30/90 Rule, 169, 206 Thomas Nelson, 281, 321 childrens books, 294 Thompson, Frank, 73, 331 Thomson, Katherine, 69 Thomson, Prof. Andy, 35, 317 Thorpe, Daniel Wrixon, 78; see also DW Thorpe Pty Ltd 3M Talking Book Award, 188 Thwaites, F.J., 242 Time Warner Book Group, xii, 286 Times House Australia, 262 Timms, E.V., 242 Timms, Peter, 200 Tipping, Marjorie, 217 Titan, Keith, 122 Titt, Malcolm, 333–4 Tolkien, J.R.R., 94–5, 352 Tomasetti, Glen, 108 Tom Collins House, 149 Tracy, Paul, 27 trade practices, 53 Trade Practices Act 1971, 79, 169 Trade Practices Tribunal, 205 trade publishing, xii, 87 Traditional Market Agreement, 3–4, 8, 9, 80, 169, 206 training, 85, 87, 88, 112, 175; see also editors, training translated editions, 310–13 Transport Publishing Company, 257 Transworld Publishers, 272 Tranter, John, 59 Travaglia, Joanne, 271 Tresize, Percy, 282 Triad Paperbacks, 97 Trinca, Rod, 299–300 Trist, Margaret, 298 True History of the Kelly Gang (Carey), xiii, 141, 190, 195–8, 262 copy-editing, 195–6 editions, 197 marketing, 197–8 research for, 195 revision process, 196 sales, 197 simultaneous publication in Australia and US, 195 typesetting by Knopf, 197 US edition, 197 Truth and Sportsman Newspaper Company, 257 Tsaloumas, Dimitris, 145 ‘Banjo’ Award, 145 Patrick White Award, 145 Tsiolkas, Christos, 140–1 Turner, Ethel, 310, 311

432 Turner, Ian, 46, 249, 250 Turner, Rosanne, 308 Turow, Scott, 346 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 129 Twentieth Century (magazine), 240, 248 Twenty Club, 19–20 Tyle, Leonie, 285, 298 Tyranny of Distance, The (Blainey), 33, 46 Tyson, Russ, 39 Ullin, Albert, 217–18 Unaipon, David, 150–1 UNESCO Index Translationum, 310 Unger, Mick, 209 Unicorn Books, 66 UniReps distribution, 69 United States Information Service Library, 289, 293 United States publishers adaptations of US texts, 325 Australian agents, 325 educational books, 325–8 marketing to Australia, 203 no stockholding in Australia, 205–6 subsidiary companies, 325 tertiary education market, 6, 31 Universal Publishers, 83 universities Co-Operative Society bookselling system, 210–11 student materials, 329 University of New South Wales, 332 University of New South Wales Press, 332–3 academic publisher, 335 established as publisher, printer, bookseller, 332 Unireps, 333 University of Queensland, 73 vice-chancellor Zelman Cowan, 73 University of Queensland Press (UQP), xii, 73–6, 330–1 Aboriginal writing, 331 Academy Editions of Australian Literature, 146 Asian and Pacific Writing series, 74 Australian Young Adult list, 285 Black Australian Writers series, 286, 298 contribution to Australian culture, 335 David Unaipon Award, 150–1, 153, 331 electronic text experiments, 132 establishment, 6 Indigenous list, 152, 153, 189, 265 and McPhee Gribble, 108

Index multicultural anthologies, 270 Paperback Poets series, 74 Paperback Prose series, 74 plays published, 33 poetry published, 33, 58, 74, 335 Portable Australian Authors series, 74 Storybridge junior readers list, 285, 298 True History of the Kelly Gang, 195–8 unsolicited manuscripts, 298 Young Adult list, 285, 298 University of Sydney bookselling at, 211 Chair in Australian Literature, 141 survey of reading habits, 344–5 University of Western Australia Press, 331–2 children’s books, 331 distribution and marketing, 331 editing and design, 332 Indigenous list, 265 printing, 332 regional focus, 331, 335 university presses, xii, 328–35 and bookshops, 330 CD ROM titles, 132 contribution of MUP and UQP to Australian culture, 335 Internet’s impact on, 335 problems, 335 publishing policy, 73–4 websites, 133 see also scholarly publishing Unreal! (Jennings), 284, 308 unsolicited manuscripts, 82, 298, 308, 309 Unwin Enterprises, 98 Unwin Hyman, 97 Unwin, Rayner, 94, 97 Unwin, Sir Stanley, 93–4 Updike, John, 361 Upfield, Arthur, 360 Ure Smith Pty Ltd, 13, 25, 27, 28, 31 controversial titles, 33 marketing for UQP, 75 merger with Horwitz, 27 They’re a Weird Mob, xiii, 7, 24–30, 32 ‘Walkabout Pocketbooks’, 27 Ure Smith, Sam, xii, xiii, 11, 25, 293 Ure Smith, Sydney, 25, 217 Uris, Leon, 361 Utemorrah, Daisy, 112 Valdez, Zoe, 117 van den Berg, Rosemary, 77 Van Hek, Lin, 264 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, 142 ‘vanity’ publishing, 82 Varuna Writers Centre, 148, 149, 185; see also Eleanor Dark Foundation

Vaux, James Hardy, 336 Vella, Richard, 70 Verne, Jules, 359 verse novels, 140 vertical integration of book production, 127 Victorian Education Department, 316 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 142, 160, 188 Vidal, Gore, 347 Vietnam War post-war nationalism, 53, 67 protests against, 73 violence in literature, 353 Visiting Publishers Program (VIP), 141 Vitale, Alberto, 128–9 Vivas, Ana, 288 Vivas, Julie, 284, 300, 301, 309, 312 Vonnegut, Kurt, 352 W.P. Lineham bookshop, 214 Wagner, Erica, 100, 219, 284 see also Irving, Erica Wagner, Jenny, 219, 295, 307 Wagner, Sue, 37 Wakefield Press, 274, 342–3 Wakefield, Sam, 282 Walkabout (magazine), 239, 241–2 Walker, Kath, 33, 36–7, 151, 296 see also Noonuccal, Oodgeroo Walker, R.R., 39 Wall, Dorothy, 299 Wallace-Crabbe, Chris, 13 Wallis-Smith, Gerry, 68–9 Walsh, Richard, 46, 108, 171, 181, 255 at A&R, 57, 58–9, 180 at Australian Consolidated Press, 63 Australian Independent Publishers Association (AIPA), 57 Walt Disney Company, 129 Walter McVitty Books, 284 Walters, Minette, 99–100 Wannan, Bill, 39 War Memorial, 342 Warana Writers’ Week (Brisbane), 158 Warburton, Jim, 36, 324 Ward, Glenyse, 112 Ward, Peter, 162 Ward, Roger, 94 Ward, Russel, 22, 261 Warnecke, George, 362 Warren, Marion 27 Waten, Judah, 20, 44, 145, 167 Watson, Maureen, 152 Watson, Sam, 155 Watson, Samuel Wagan, 152, 155 Watts, Julie, xii, 284, 286–7, 308, 309 Wearne, Alan, 145 Webb, Kaye, 307

Index Webber, Margareta, 214; see also Margareta Webber Bookshop websites, 132–4 Weekly Book Newsletter,The (‘blue news’), 79 Weidenfeld & Nicholson Ltd, 104 Weir, Peter, 61 Weir, Sandy, 99 Weiss, Elizabeth, 99, 191, 271 Weldon, Kevin, 37, 45 Weller, Archie, 163 Wells, Dean, 65 Wells, H.G., 359 ‘Wep’, see Pidgeon, William (‘Wep’) West, Morris, 18, 140, 170 Westerly, 248, 251 Western Australian Literary Awards, 160 Western Australian Literature Board, 76; see also Arts Western Australia Western Publishing Co (Wisconsin), 49 Wharton, Herb, 153, 298 Wheatley, Nadia, 219–20, 283, 295, 308 Wheeler, Maureen, xii, 105–6 Wheeler, Tony, xii, 105–6 Whitcomb and Tombs bookshop, 203, 314, 315 White, Denny, 258 White, Kerry, 310 White, Patrick, 143, 179, 252, 346, 352 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 144 Miles Franklin Award, 143, 179 Nobel Prize for Literature, 141, 145 plays, 69, 70 see also Patrick White Award White, Richard, 95 Whiteoak, John, 71 Whitlam, Gough, 44, 105–6 Whitlam government, 53, 63, 80 Whitman & Co (Chicago), 48 Wiggs booksellers, 210 Wighton, Rosemary, 252, 279, 282 Wild, Margaret, 100, 310 Wild & Woolley, 106 Wilder, Ken, 281–2 Wilding, Michael, 74 Wiley, 31, 325–6, 327, 328 Wiley Eastern, 327 Wiley, W. Bradford, 326 Wilke purchase of Jacaranda Press, 35 purchase of FW Cheshire, 35 Wilkes, G.A., 245, 337 Wilkes-Hunter, Richard, 52 Willard, Myra, 329 William Brooks & Co, 35, 315 William Collins, Sons & Co., 282, 295 Australian publishing, 56 Australian warehouse, 5

at Bologna Children’s Book Fair, 282 children’s publishing, 219, 282 dictionaries, 338–9 educational publishing, 53 general publishing, 53 Indigenous writers, 282 William Collins wholesalers, 209 William Heinemann, 108 Williams, Bridget, 96 Williams, Sue, xii, 281, 287, 299, 302 Williamson, David, 67, 68, 69, 70, 195–6 Williamson, Harry, 68 Wilmot, Chester, 345 Wilmot, Frank, 329 Wilson Learning, 327 Winch, Gordon, 321 Winton, Tim, 77, 100, 111, 140, 143, 161 Witting, Amy, 145 Wombat Book Club, 305 women attitude to male-dominated industry, 299 book-buyers, 188 booksellers, 216 changing role in publishing, 54 editors, 174, 295, 295 multicultural writers, 271 playwrights, 69 publishers, 295 readers, 188 reading group membership, 348 writers, 140, 263–4 see also writers, women Women’s Press (UK), 97 Women’s Redress Press, 264–5, 271 Wood, Danielle, 100 Wood, Eleanor Sophia, 333–4 Wood, W.A. (Chip), 334 Woolf,Virginia, 352 Working Title Press, 287, 302 World Books Club, 213 World Books Pty Ltd, 213 World War II, official history of, 358 World War II genre, 51–2 Wouk, Herman, 361 Wran, Neville, 160 Wright, Alexis, 153 Wright, Judith, 11, 22, 46, 144, 167, 178 Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 144 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 142 Wrightson, Patricia, 13, 178, 219, 280, 283, 291, 294, 299, 308, 311, 312 writers bestselling, 140 difficult, 183–4 fellowships for, 166 immigrants, 268–9 income of, 139

433 Indigenous, xii, 14, 150–5 output following Australian/ Vogel award, 164 pension scheme for, 166 as performance artists, 158 periodicals, publication in, 239 professional and non-professional, 148 professional organisations for, 146 promotion of, 159, 160, 161, 187 of pulp fiction, 258 relationship with editors, 182, 183 retreats for, 149 state interference with, 167 visibility of, 150 women, 140, 263–4 see also Australian Society of Authors (ASA); Australian Writers Guild (AWG); authors; Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW); writers centres writers centres Australian Centre for Youth Literature (Melbourne), 149 Books Illustrated (Melbourne), 149 Dromkeen Museum of Australian Children’s Literature, 149 Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre, 149 funding, 147 Katharine Susannah Prichard House, 149 May Gibbs Trust (Adelaide), 149 NSW regional network (Litlink), 148 Nutcote (Sydney), 149 purpose of, 147 Queensland Writers Centre, 112, 168 SA Writers Centre, 147 space for writers, 148 structure varies, 149 Tom Collins House, 149 writers catered for, 147–8 for young people, 149 writers festivals, see literary festivals writers’ groups multicultural, 274 writing, isolated art, 182 Wyndham, John, 361 Yallop, Graham, 66 Yates, Alan G. (‘Carter Brown’), 50, 258 Yevtushenko,Yevgeny, 46 Yowell, Jackie, 193 Yuen, Henry C., 122 Zable, Arnold, 115 Zeeng, Lynette, 200 Zifcak, Michael at Collins Booksellers, 221, 222 at Collins Book Depot, 6

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