'This is a survey history of the scholarly editing of literary works undertaken in Australia or by Australians. It makes no claims to be complete or definitive. The intention is to lay out relevant areas of editorial activity with sufficient detail to be representative, so that it might serve as a basis for future, more thorough bibliographic listing and analysis by others. It is also unashamedly personal at moments: there is no Olympian position available to an insider such as myself, and so I have not tried to hide the fact.' (Introduction)