AustLit

‘By the late 1930s Macmillan of London must have believed that Rolf Boldrewood's colonial tale of bushranging adventure, Robbery Under Arms, had all but exhausted its appeal. It had originally been serialised in the Sydney Mail in 1882-83, published in London in three volumes in 1888, abridged for Macmillan's one -volume Colonial Library in 1889, and reprinted in various formats at least forty times until 1920.The firm's records show that, in total, the title sold more than half a million copies up to 1937, with most sold prior to World War I. Sales had been dropping steadily ever since, and a 1941 reprinting looked like being the last.’(Introduction 260)