In Britain, the United States and Canada, multi-volume histories of the book are in progress: Britain began publication in 1999, the United States in 2000, and Canada in 2004. So Australia, which has always boasted that it sells more books per head of population than anywhere else, is not lagging in the international book history stakes.

Immediately following World War II, what Australians read was decided, largely, by London publishers. Australia, the most important export market for British books, was jealously guarded. Booksellers were quite compliant in this, as they received good discounts and the retail price was fixed, which prohibited discounting. Only fifteen per cent of books sold in Australia were published here. The only local publisher of any note was Angus & Robertson.

Over the next decades, all of this changed. Australian-owned publishing houses increased, reaching an apogee in the 1970s, before amalgamations and foreign takeovers culled them dramatically. Books by Australians and about Australian subjects became the norm. The changing technology of book production allowed anyone to become a publisher. Paperbacks became proper books, the format of first publication. Australia went from being an importer of educational texts from Britain to a country with a thriving educational publishing industry that exported to the United States. Standard reference works about Australia were thin on the ground and rudimentary in 1946, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century we had a range of titles which could answer almost any question. Resale price maintenance was made illegal in 1972. Discounting houses and chains of bookshops developed. The number of quality independent booksellers increased.

An Australia-wide network of free public libraries, barely existing in 1946, replaced subscription libraries and Schools of Arts, many of which were moribund as far as their book stock was concerned. Authors benefited from Public Lending Right from 1975. Libraries, by 2000, were the most used of all our cultural institutions. Fifty per cent of Australians were library members, and twenty per cent of all books read were obtained from libraries. Censorship was liberalised from the 1960s. Literary awards became ubiquitous from the 1970s. Writers’ centres proliferated. Literary agents became common (well, not unusual) and the book club became the backdrop de nos jours to the hostess’s culinary arts. Literary festivals reached plague proportions. The e-book raised its head, but seems to have been put back in its box for now.

Half of this book is concerned with the history of publishers, which is perhaps excessive given this volume’s broad remit. As with other topics in this book, there are chapters giving an overview and a series of case studies. Richard Walsh on ‘The New A & R’ is masterful — succinct, thoughtful, analytical and highly readable. Walsh headed Angus & Robertson from 1972 to 1986, a controversial period, following the firm’s takeover by Gordon Barton in 1970. Walsh, of course, is the protagonist of his own story, and his account is by definition subjective. There is a place in a history such as this for intelligent commentary by a participant, yet other accounts throughout the book, from those who were prime players in the events they describe, are pedestrian in the extreme and read like press releases. There is no reflection or analysis, and often the narrative descends to lists of names qualified by superlatives. Perhaps it was hoped every-one mentioned would buy a copy.

Some of the contributions have been published before and are reprinted. That by Robert Sessions comes from a 2004 issue of Australian Bookseller & Publisher. Sessions, publishing director at Penguin with a lifetime’s experience in publishing, is someone of significance and deserves better than this. 

There has been much talk in recent years, mostly uninformed, about what some people perceive as ‘slipping editorial standards’. Nothing annoys me more than the smug reviewer who writes ‘what a pity this wasn’t edited …’ without knowing anything of the negotiations that might have gone on between author and editor. Our editors are up there with the world’s best (ask our top authors), and it is only when you know what goes on behind closed doors (and on the phone and via email) that you can properly judge that.

This may have been appropriate for the audience at the time. However, I am sure that, on reflection (as Sir Humphrey might say), Sessions would agree that ‘what goes on behind closed doors’ is irrelevant to a judgment on editorial standards. Good editors would have edited this out.

Good editors would also have ensured that significant topics were not short-changed, with the space devoted to personal reminiscence instead. A miserly two-and-a-half-pages, titled ‘Flagship Angus & Robertson’, deals with Angus & Robertson before its takeover in 1970. Some flagship if it is only worth this amount of space. In addition, it is merely an extract from an interview with the head of the company, George Ferguson, a longer version of which had been published in 1997. It offends on three grounds: it is too short, too subjective, and it lacks analytical rigour.

Writers, all writers, are the essential element in print culture. The literary award winner, the romance writer, the historian, the scientist, the humorist and the pulp novelist, all these and more are sine qua non. A chapter and a number of case studies address this. There are informative contributions on writers’ centres and festivals, and on the state’s involvement with writing both supportive (e.g. awards and industry assistance) and obstructive (e.g. censorship). Censorship is treated too briefly. It was given excellent coverage in the previous volume, covering the period 1891–1945, and it is a pity the opportunity was not taken to continue the story. Tess Brady’s case study on The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is well deserved in view of the prize’s importance. However, when Brady wrote ‘the Vogel is the most significant privately sponsored and run literary award in Australia’, I swear Miles Franklin rose up to smite her. Overall though, the reader is not given an insight into the practicalities of being a writer at this period. This was, again, done well in the previous volume; again, it is a pity that it was not continued.

The mechanics of book production is treated superficially, apart from an elegant piece by Jacqueline Kent on the legendary editor Beatrice Davis. Kent has published an award-winning monograph on her subject (2001), but here she pays us the compliment of writing anew rather than serving up a réchauffé.

Bookselling is covered in a chapter by Michael Zifcak. Unfortunately, it reads like a textbook, with sections on inter alia ‘statement of terms’, ‘closed market’, ‘resale price maintenance’ and ‘franchising’. A case study on ‘Margareta Webber’s Bookshop’ follows (to be pedantic, I have always believed it was ‘The Bookshop of Margareta Webber’, which is classier, as befits a Melbourne establishment). This elegantly furnished bookshop, which opened in 1931, was more like a literary salon than a shop. Webber was a pioneer in selling only books, unlike her competitors, who sold stationery and ran lending libraries as well. She ran the bookshop until 1973. The author of the case study, Laurel Clark, has researched Webber for an MA thesis, and I would have appreciated a fuller treatment of her subject, especially as Clark is one of the few contributors to this book who has actually done original research on her subject. Compare this with the succeeding case study, ‘The Little Bookroom’, by Albert Ullin. Ullin founded this bookshop in 1960, the first specialist children’s bookshop in Australia. He must have an important and fascinating story to tell; but he does not tell it here. Little of the case study is about the bookshop anyway; rather, it is about children’s literature generally. The Little Bookroom is worthy of analysis, but if all that can be published is this, it would have been better not to publish at all, and instead simply note this pioneering enterprise in the general overview chapter. This is not an isolated case: many contributions should have been sent back to their authors by the editors for additional research and rewriting.

The failure of this book is a failure by the editors. The book certainly mentions most aspects of print culture and, by using the index (which is superb – pity there is nothing in the book about the importance and art of indexing), the reader can glean a great many facts. Dr Johnson is reputed to have said that there was not a fact which he would prefer not knowing rather than knowing, but he had not read this book. Facts are necessary, but in a history, analysis and a critical faculty are essential. Far too many of the contributions lack this.

Comparisons may be odious, but the previous volume was everything that this volume is not in this respect. I suspect that this is because very little research has been done on the period under review, unlike the earlier period. Commissioning so many to write about events in which they were the principal participants was a mistake. The editors seem to be confused about the use of personal reminiscence, though they confirm my supposition about the lack of research. In the introduction they state: ‘Because such changes [in the book trade] have not been fully documented, this volume makes extensive use of oral history and memoir.’ But there is a vast difference between using oral history as one source in research and using it as the only source.

Unfortunately, many of the other contributions are not much better – bland is probably the fairest description. At best, this book is a source book for the real history of the book in Australia, 1946–2005, yet to be published.