Elizabeth Webby

Colonial Australian Fiction: Character Types, Social Formations and the Colonial Economy, by Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver. Sydney University Press, 2017.

With the growing interest in the history of the book, the extensive Angus & Robertson archive, now held at the State Library of NSW, has been increasingly studied over the last few decades. This is hardly surprising, given the leading…

Remembering Patrick White: Contemporary Critical Essays includes twelve essays based on papers delivered at a symposium of the same title, held in Sydney in May 2007. In their introduction, the editors refer to the collection as 'the first major study…

The article explores the tastes and values of late-nineteenth-century reading groups and societies in Hobart, Sydney and Adelaide, and of their interest (or lack thereof) in Australian literature.

Webby presents a detailed analysis of the first two Australian volumes in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

Bibliographies, indexes, finding lists - essential tools for the literary scholar and cultural historian, but ones often lacking for Australian material. The three works reviewed here represent many man (or, in most cases, woman) hours of intensive and careful work…

Some years ago I was teaching a course on nineteenth-century Australian literature which involved lectures on both Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career (1901) and Joseph Furphy's Such is Life (1903). Writing the lectures started me thinking about the links between…

In the past, drama has been something of the Cinderella among Australia's literary genres. In nationalist constructions of of literary history, for example, poetry and fiction were seen as having their originary moments in the 1890s, while drama had to…

On 27 May 1887, Richardson had written in an exercise book she was using as a diary, now also among the Richardson Papers in the National Library: 'Read a lot of Father's and Mother's letters. It is like reading a…

Between them, these four books indicate something of the present widening range of Australian literary studies. Our writers, especially our novelists, are attracting increasing attention overseas. An American Association for Australian Literary Studies has just been established, joining others already…

Margaret Williams' book has been subtitled 'an historical entertainment in six acts'. Its format—quarto size, large print, generous margins, plentiful illustrations—seems designed for the coffee table. Anyone who reads the text, however, will discover that this is a highly scholarly…

These four books—two autobiographical, two biographical—between them cover almost the whole span of Australia's literary history. Catherine Spence s autobiography begins with reminiscences ofher childhood at Melrose, next door to Sir Walter Scott, the domi nant influence on early Australian…