Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 19301970

Jason D. Ensor

Description

A unique look into the history of Australia’s largest publisher, Angus & Robertson, and its role in the development of Australia’s export book trade.

Despite upheavals in ownership over the past three decades, the name Angus & Robertson remains to date the most recognised book-retailing brand in Australia. However, it is little known that through the incredible efforts of everyone involved in the operations of its London agency, Angus & Robertson was, for a time, also the most recognised Australian bookselling and book publishing brand in the commonwealth.

This book documents a distinctive chapter in the history of Australian book publishing as it addresses how the company dealt with the tension between aspirational literary nationalism and the requirements of turning a profit while attempting to get inside the UK literary market. As well as detailing Angus & Robertson’s complete international relations, the book argues that the company’s international business was a much larger, more successful and complicated business than has been acknowledged by previous scholars. It questions the ways in which Angus & Robertson replicated, challenged or transformed the often highly criticised commercial practices of British publishers in order to develop an export trade for Australian books in the United Kingdom.

‘Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 1930–1970’ is the first of its kind; no other book in the present literary market records a substantial history of Australia’s largest publisher and its role in the development of Australia’s export book trade. Although a unique piece, this volume also complements existing studies on Angus & Robertson, Australian literature and Australian publishing.

Dramatis Personae; Preface; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: The Company that Loved Australian Books; Chapter 2: The Overseas Books in Australian Publishing History; Chapter 3: Triangles of Publishing and Other Stories; Chapter 4: The World is Made of Paper Restrictions; Chapter 5: The First Salesman in London; Chapter 6: The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom; Chapter 7: Preparing for ‘Operation London’; Chapter 8: The Shiralee in the North; Chapter 9: A Commercial and Cultural Relationship; Chapter 10: Tomorrow, When London Publishing Ended; Chapter 11: A House is Rebuilt; Chapter 12: The Hidden Parts of Publishing Fortune; Chapter 13: Learning from a Distance; Figures and Tables; Notes; Bibliography; Index 

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783081059
• Langue: English

Extrait

Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 1930–1970
Anthem Australian Humanities Research Series
The Anthem Australian Humanities Research Series incorporates a broad range of titles on the past, present and future of Australia, comprising an excellent collection of interdisciplinary academic texts. The series aims to promote the most challenging and original work being undertaken in the field by both Australian and non-Australian scholars on Australian culture, society, politics, history and literature. Some of the most innovative research in both the traditional and new humanities today is being done by scholars in the Australian humanities, including literature, history, book history, print culture, cinema, new media and digital cultures, gender studies, cultural studies and indigenous studies.
Series Editor Robert Dixon – University of Sydney, Australia
Editorial Board Alison Bashford – University of Sydney, Australia Jill Bennett – University of New South Wales, Australia Nicholas Birns – Eugene Lang College of the New School, USA Francis Bonner – University of Queensland, Australia David Carter – University of Queensland, Australia Barbara Creed – University of Melbourne, Australia Martin Crotty – University of Queensland, Australia Paul Eggert – University of New South Wales, Australia John Frow – University of Melbourne, Australia Ken Gelder – University of Melbourne, Australia Helen Gilbert – Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Gerard Goggin – University of Sydney, Australia Bridget Griffen-Foley – Macquarie University, Australia Ian Henderson – King’s College London, UK Jeanette Hoorn – University of Melbourne, Australia Graham Huggan – University of Leeds, UK Catharine Lumby – University of New South Wales, Australia Martyn Lyons – University of New South Wales, Australia Andrew L. McCann – Dartmouth College, USA Ian McLean – University of Wollongong, Australia Philip Mead – University of Western Australia, Australia Meaghan Morris – University of Sydney, Australia Stephen Muecke – University of New South Wales, Australia Deb Verhoeven – Deakin University, Australia Gillian Whitlock – University of Queensland, Australia
Angus & Robertson and the British Trade in Australian Books, 1930–1970
The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom
JASON D. ENSOR
Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2013 by ANTHEM PRESS 75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
First published in hardback by Anthem Press in 2012
Copyright © Jason D. Ensor 2013
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Cover image © Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW – SPF/1164
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Ensor, Jason D. Angus & Robertson and the British trade in Australian books, 1930–1970: the getting of bookselling wisdom / Jason D. Ensor. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85728-566-9 1. Angus & Robertson Publishers–History. 2. Publishers and publishing–Australia–History–20th century. 3. Booksellers and bookselling–Australia–History–20th century. 4. Australian literature–Publishing–Great Britain–History–20th century. 5. Publishers and publishing–Great Britain–History–20th century. 6. Booksellers and bookselling–Great Britain–History–20th century. 7. Book industries and trade–Australia–History–20th century. 8. Book industries and trade–Great Britain–History–20th century. 9. Australia–Foreign economic relations–Great Britain. 10. Great Britain–Foreign economic relations–Australia. I. Title. Z533.3.A54E57 2013 070.5099409’04–dc23 2012033446
ISBN-13: 978 1 78308 058 8 (Pbk) ISBN-10: 1 78308 058 2 (Pbk)
This title is also available as an ebook.
CONTENTS Dramatis Personae vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi Chapter 1 The Company that Loved Australian Books 1 Chapter 2 The Overseas Books in Australian Publishing History 11 Chapter 3 Triangles of Publishing and Other Stories 29 Chapter 4 The World is Made of Paper Restrictions 47 Chapter 5 The First Salesman in London 63 Chapter 6 The Getting of Bookselling Wisdom 71 Chapter 7 Preparing for ‘Operation London’ 83 Chapter 8 The Shiralee in the North 91 Chapter 9 A Commercial and Cultural Relationship 101 Chapter 10 Tomorrow, When London Publishing Ended 111 Chapter 11 A House is Rebuilt 127 Chapter 12 The Hidden Parts of Publishing Fortune 147 Chapter 13 Learning from a Distance 163 Figures and Tables 169 Notes 185 Bibliography 229 Index 241
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Angus & Robertson, Sydney
Aubrey Cousins Walter Cousins George Ferguson Paul Tracy
Angus & Robertson, London
Alec Bolton Walter Butcher John Ferguson Hector MacQuarrie Bernard Robinson Barry Rowland Cliff Rust Douglas Stewart Sam Ure Smith Vera Wellings Mrs Woods
Australasian Publishing Company, Sydney
Stanley Bartlett
British Publishers
John Brown (British Publishers Association) Dwye Evans (Heinemann) Walter Harrap (George G. Harrap & Co.) Frank Sanders (British Publishers Association) Stanley Unwin (George Allen & Unwin)
PREFACE
Although this book is not the first study to interrogate the extensive Mitchell Library holdings of the Angus & Robertson archives with regards to the company’s business operations, 1 it is the first whose central concern is the company’s production and distribution of Australian books within the United Kingdom through its London office. Often footnoted as worthy of further investigation, 2 this is an area of history which to date has only been narrowly scoped without reference to key archival volumes held by the State Library of New South Wales, Australia. Heather Rusden’s interview with Alec Bolton 3 and Suzanne Lunney’s interviews with George Ferguson, 4 Douglas Stewart 5 and Ernie Williams 6 provide some context but are limited due to the anecdotal nature of reminiscences. The majority of material published on Angus & Robertson, which is substantial, also records very little about the company’s London operations. The best account is by Neil James in 2000, which places the London office’s business within the framework of the Australian company’s general overseas operations. 7 It draws on interviews conducted by James with publisher George Ferguson and former occasional London office employees John Ferguson, David Moore and Sam Ure Smith. These also take the form of reminiscences regarding operations and managers in the United Kingdom. 8 Essays appearing in the firm’s own publication, Fragment: The House Magazine of Angus & Robertson and Halstead Press (1954–9), offer further perspective and so does commentary from Collins’ Australian managing director, Ken Wilder, ‘who sat on the Angus & Robertson board with a watching brief’ during the 1960s. 9
This information on the firm is concise and contributes important material for the history of exporting Australian books, but it does not afford a complete narrative and analysis of Angus & Robertson’s London office. To date, much of the research and data on Australian publishing has focused on single publishing houses operating within national borders, the personality of leading publishing CEOs, or famous writers’ interactions with well-known publishers. There is a significant knowledge gap, however, in the analysis of Australian publishers responding to external conditions and their international transactions. An objective of this book therefore is to fill this gap in the record: it seeks to complement existing studies on Angus & Robertson, Australian literature and other Australian publishers and to provide new insights into the historical links between the international trade in books and local transformations in the Australian publishing industry.
For its interpretative history, the research in this book draws on the documentary evidence held in volumes 18–34 of Angus & Robertson London, volumes 440–49 of Hector MacQuarrie and volumes 645–8 of Barry Rowland from the Mitchell Library’s second Angus & Robertson collection, MSS 3269 ML. Together these represent nearly ten thousand documents on the subject. This restricted collection of memos, author and publisher correspondence, contracts and financial statements is supplemented by an another 4,000 documents from the archives of Angus & Robertson’s subsidiary printer Halstead Press, the Publisher’s Associations in Britain and Australia, and a selection of English publishers, including George G. Harrap and William Heinemann. Permission to access and digitise these documents was given by then current copyright o