R. G. Campbell compiled this anthology in 1954, hoping to publish a collection of the best short stories he had first published in the pages of the monthly story magazine, the Australian Journal. A letter accompanying the typescript anthology suggests that it was submitted to Beatrice Davis at Angus and Robertson, but the anthology was never published and Davis's response has not survived.
'The Australian Journal (1865–1957) is wellknown to students of Australian literature as a publisher of Australian fiction, including the first version of Marcus Clarke’s celebrated convict novel, For the term of his natural life. Apart from the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century when it relied heavily on syndicated fiction from overseas, The Australian Journal was consistently a significant publisher of Australian fiction, issuing several thousand stories by some hundreds of Australian writers. Histories of magazines acknowledge the preeminence of the magazine in the 1870s, but then ignore or treat cursorily its next eighty years. However, not only did the journal survive for ninety years, but under the editorship of RG Campbell from 1926 to 1955 it fostered the careers of a range of freelance Australian writers, contributing to their incomes and allowing them to develop their craft.' (Introduction)
'The Australian Journal (1865–1957) is wellknown to students of Australian literature as a publisher of Australian fiction, including the first version of Marcus Clarke’s celebrated convict novel, For the term of his natural life. Apart from the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century when it relied heavily on syndicated fiction from overseas, The Australian Journal was consistently a significant publisher of Australian fiction, issuing several thousand stories by some hundreds of Australian writers. Histories of magazines acknowledge the preeminence of the magazine in the 1870s, but then ignore or treat cursorily its next eighty years. However, not only did the journal survive for ninety years, but under the editorship of RG Campbell from 1926 to 1955 it fostered the careers of a range of freelance Australian writers, contributing to their incomes and allowing them to develop their craft.' (Introduction)
