AustLit

'Despite its prosaic title, David Carter and Roger Osborne’s book delivers on its promise of an erudite, expansive, and engaging study of the fortunes of Australian books and authors in the American marketplace in the years spanning the 1840s to 1940s. Not simply a significant contribution to the history of Australian fiction and publishing, Carter and Osborne’s volume explores the commercial dynamics, opportunities and hurdles for Australian writers and publishing houses that sought to break into what was from the end of the nineteenth century the most lucrative publishing market in the world. Henry Lamond’s remark in 1945 was probably true for much of the period examined in this book: ‘The Yank literary market is absolutely the best in the whole blinkin’ world.’ And Carter and Osborne provide rich detail of the efforts of Australians to exploit that marketplace. More than this, Australian Books and Authors in the American Marketplace 1840s–1940s examines the world of colonial and transatlantic publishing and the complex of networks, institutions, and dispositions that Australia authors and books were required to negotiate.' (Introduction)