Issue Details: First known date: 2018... 2018 Renegotiating the American Connection : Australian Fiction 1900-1930s
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The first three decades of the twentieth century present no clear pattern for the publication of Australian novels in the United States outside the serial relationships with publishers that certain genre writers were able to achieve. Otherwise, in all but a few cases, we see one-off or occasional publishing, with few signs of sustained investment in individual authors and even less in Australian books per se. Towards the end of the period, however, the situation changes quite suddenly with the enormous critical and sales success of Henry Handel Richardson's Ultima Palk in 1929, followed the year after by Katharine Susannah Prichard's Coonardoo, and these two authors will be the subject of Chapter 6. The present chapter surveys the presence in the American marketplace of Australian writers working in the broad field of commercial fiction but outside the popular genres of crime, mystery and women's romance. It examines the obstacles and opportunities for Australian authors and stories in America in these decades after the passing of international copyright legislation in the United States and as the structures of the modem, twentieth-century US publishing industry were set in place.'  (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Books and Authors in the American Marketplace : 1840s-1940s David Carter , Roger Osborne , Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2018 14035789 2018 multi chapter work criticism biography

    'Australian Books and Authors in the American Marketplace 1840s—1940s explores how Australian writers and their works were present in the United States before the mid twentieth century to a much greater degree than previously acknowledged. Drawing on fresh archival research and combining the approaches of literary criticism, print culture studies and book history, David Carter and Roger Osborne demonstrate that Australian writing was transnational long before the contemporary period. In mapping Australian literature’s connections to British and US markets, their research challenges established understandings of national, imperial and world literatures.

    Carter and Osborne examine how Australian authors, editors and publishers engaged productively with their American counterparts, and how American readers and reviewers responded to Australian works. They consider the role played by British publishers and agents in taking Australian writing to America, and how the international circulation of new literary genres created new opportunities for novelists to move between markets.

    Some of these writers, such as Christina Stead and Patrick White, remain household names; others who once enjoyed international fame, such as Dale Collins and Alice Grant Rosman, have been largely forgotten. The story of their books in America reveals how culture, commerce and copyright law interacted to create both opportunities and obstacles for Australian writers.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)

    Sydney : Sydney University Press , 2018
    pg. 111-160
Last amended 19 Nov 2018 12:00:49
111-160 Renegotiating the American Connection : Australian Fiction 1900-1930ssmall AustLit logo
X