Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:57:17.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Selling Australian Stories to the World

The Dynamics of Twentieth-Century Publishing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2023

David Carter
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Get access

Summary

This chapter describes the dynamics of publishing novels in twentieth-century Australia through selected case studies and an analysis of changing industry, legal and cultural contexts. Publication in book form was more challenging for authors located in Australia due to the dominance of the British publishing industry and its control of territorial copyright for the Australasian market. Australian authors had few options but to seek the interest of overseas publishers, despite the local activity of Angus & Robertson, the NSW Bookstall Co. and other short-lived enterprises. In the early twentieth century, Joseph Furphy declared ‘Aut Australia aut nihil’ and published Such is Life (1903) with the Bulletin Newspaper Company. Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career (1901) took another route and was published by Blackwood in Edinburgh. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the publishing history of Australian novels was often seen as a tale of three cities: London, Melbourne and Sydney. But New York, Philadelphia and Boston also beckoned, creating a broader and much more complex literary marketplace. Changes in the international rights market and local publishing significantly increased the possibilities of publishing in multiple markets by the end of the twentieth century.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×