From Convict Printers to Book Arcades
A History of the Book Volume 1: 1788-1890
European printing technology came in the 1790s to a continent where there were – and still are – age-old modes of communication developed by Indigenous Australians. The present volume, while recognising this essential prehistory, is devoted to the print civilisation imported by the newcomers.
Throughout the nineteenth century books, magazines and newspapers arrived in great quantities from elsewhere, notably the British Isles. Appropriate means of distribution – bookshops and libraries – were created in the various colonies, but, as the population grew after the gold rushes, local manufacturing became evermore necessary.
From the efforts of convict and ex-convict printers before 1820 to the achievements of numerous professionals after 1850, one can follow the expansion of production, dissemination and reading. Alongside the Bush, there were urban centres like Melbourne and Sydney, ranking in size with many major European cities by 1890. Thus, it was possible to find in Victoria's capital what was plausibly claimed to be the biggest bookshop in the world: Cole's Book Arcade.
Wallace Kirsop taught French at the University of Sydney and Monash University between 1955 and 1998. From 1968 to 2002 he was editor of the Australian Journal of French Studies. Since the 1960s his research and publications have centred on the book world in ancien régime France and nineteenth-century Australia.
Elizabeth Webby (1942-2023) was for many years Professor of Australian Literature at the University of Sydney and editor of Southerly. Her numerous publications concerned, in particular, books and reading in Australia in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Judy Donnelly, trained as a librarian at the University of Toronto, was project manager for A History of the Book in Canada/Histoire du livre et de l'imprimé au Canada and director and co-editor of Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing. In Melbourne, she worked as an archivist/historian and editor before joining the HOBA team.
