After a long career with various Australian newspapers as a journalist and editor, W. Farmer Whyte moved to Canberra in 1927 to join the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery and establish the Federal News Service. Ten years later he founded the Australian National Review with the entomologist R. J. Tillyard.
The Australian National Review aimed to produce an independent forum that would 'provide a new medium of cultural thought and expression which may assist Australians to arrive at a deeper understanding of the nation's need'. At first the magazine was unapologetically religious in tone, hoping to 'raise awareness of, and contact with, the unseen, spiritual world'. But this tone did not continue for long, perhaps lost with the death of the deeply religious Tillyard in 1937.
Whyte attracted a diverse number of contributors to the Australian National Review, publishing articles on politics, science, economics, leisure and the arts. Literature remained a particular focus through Whyte's love of verse (as both a reader and writer) and his correspondence with Miles Franklin. Contributors of literary material included Roderic Quinn, Mary Gilmore, Ian Mudie, Zora Cross, Miles Franklin, A. R. Chisholm, Frederick Macartney, C. B. Christesen, Furnley Maurice, Louis Lavater, Paul Grano, Martin Haley, H. M. Green, T. Inglis Moore, Victor Kennedy, R. G. Howarth, Dal Stivens, R. D. FitzGerald, Mary Finnin, A. D. Hope, Brian Vrepont and Judith Wright.
The Australian National Review received positive reviews and maintained a regular monthly appearance. The August issue of 1939 showed no signs of imminent closure, but it was to be the last issue. The Second World War broke out the following month.
