'Beatrice Davis was the general editor for the Sydney publishing firm Angus & Robertson (A&R) from the late 1930s to the early 1970s and a central figure in the literary culture and production of books in Australia. In her role as publisher's reader and head of A&R's large general editorial department, her judgement of literary fiction held sway in Australian publishing for over three decades at a time when A&R was regarded as the pre-eminent publisher In addition, she was an office holder in the Australian English Association, a judge on the Bulletin's S.H Prior Memorial Prize novel competition, and a judge on the Miles Franklin Award from its inception in 1957 to her death in 1992. Her dismissal from A&R in 1973 has been regarded as a symbolic moment in the transformations underway in publishing at that time. It is largely through Beatrice Davis that a new generation of book editors has come both to connect with a long tradition of editing and to measure the distance between that tradition and today's editing context.' (from Author's introduction)
'Beatrice Davis was the general editor for the Sydney publishing firm Angus & Robertson (A&R) from the late 1930s to the early 1970s and a central figure in the literary culture and production of books in Australia. In her role as publisher's reader and head of A&R's large general editorial department, her judgement of literary fiction held sway in Australian publishing for over three decades at a time when A&R was regarded as the pre-eminent publisher In addition, she was an office holder in the Australian English Association, a judge on the Bulletin's S.H Prior Memorial Prize novel competition, and a judge on the Miles Franklin Award from its inception in 1957 to her death in 1992. Her dismissal from A&R in 1973 has been regarded as a symbolic moment in the transformations underway in publishing at that time. It is largely through Beatrice Davis that a new generation of book editors has come both to connect with a long tradition of editing and to measure the distance between that tradition and today's editing context.' (from Author's introduction)
