AustLit

Includes 'Ignorance' (by M. L.), a brief commentary which has been written in response to the 'banning of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World by the Customs Department.' The writer asserts that in 'January last two further shameful discolourations appeared on the reputation of Australia...Both of these incidents were the outcome of ignorance.' Although the writer makes a passing reference to the cable sent by the Board of Control for Cricket (i.e. regarding the tactic of bodyline bowling), the focus of the piece is literary censorship: 'The banning of the Huxley book would be merely ludicrous were it not that it is a further step in the process of eradicating culture in the Commonwealth...The action of the Customs authorities has only succeeded in drawing the attention of paltry collectors of pornography to a work which will vastly disappoint them and which will not be at home in their libraries. It has also given the civilised world another chuckle at the expense of the Commonwealth.' (content appears in the topical monthly column, 'Contributed Comments')

Contains the monthly column 'The Bibful', by E. J. Francis, which includes an untitled piece of prose. Written in the style of a sketch, the humorous piece is about six castaways who come ashore on a raft at Palm Beach.