Cirrus@Austlit

William Moore Ferrar is best known to students of Australian literature as the author of Artabanzanus: The Demon of the Great Lake. Recently, William Moore Ferrar's descendants made available his diaries and farm journals, commencing in 1840 with his youth and departure from Ireland, through to 1897. These, though incomplete in span, record his life and farming practices in Tasmania, books he owned or read, his reactions, and original poetry and prose writing.

The article summarises the life and entrepreneurship exhibited by Jeremiah Moore, a Sydney bookseller whose experience and business practice presents the Australian book historian, and scholars of Irish migration, with considerable insights into early nineteenth-century colonial life.

'American editions of Australian novels have been appearing since the late 1800s, but we know little about the cultural and economic processes that brought them to this significant group of readers. Excellent archival retention and good fortune have preserved most of the records that relate to the publication of Joseph Furphy's Such is Life by the University of Chicago Press in September 1948. These records tell us about the publication of an Australian novel in an American edition, and detail one of the first instances of the sale to the American market of a culturally-sanctioned "classic" of Australian literature' (Author's abstract).