Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T05:10:17.655Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

24 - The Economics of the Literary Novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2023

David Carter
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Get access

Summary

This chapter examines the networks and institutions that fostered the production of explicitly ‘literary’ novels in Australia during the late twentieth century. It considers how economic changes to the publishing industry since 1980 affected the way that novels were produced and received. While literary novels were primarily produced by major trade publishers and university presses in the 1980s and early 1990s, they have increasingly been published by small presses. Literary novels arguably now have less influence within the larger literary field, but remain important within prestigious networks and institutions. The chapter then examines the careers of two authors – Gerald Murnane and David Malouf – who both began writing during the ‘conglomerate era’ and have continued to publish during the ‘age of Amazon’. While both authors have had national and international literary success, this success has relied on different institutions and networks. Malouf has had a broad success, in part because his works have been enthusiastically taken up in secondary and tertiary educational settings, whereas Murnane has relied on a more diffuse network of publishers and reviewers interested in experimental forms of writing.

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
×