The three-volume History of the Book in Australia is now complete. Scholars of Australian book history would be aware that an earlier volume, covering 1891–1945, appeared in 2001 (A National Culture in a Colonised Market, edited by Martyn Lyons and John Arnold) and that in 2006 a second volume brought the story up to 2005 (Paper Empires, edited by Craig Munro and Robyn Sheahan-Bright). Both titles were published by the University of Queensland Press. The end of that publisher’s capacity to support the project, with Australian Research Council funds long gone, is one challenge among others cited by co-editor Wallace Kirsop that sheds light on the long gestation of this final volume. The last to be published, it is in fact the first in the History’s series, covering the period 1788 to 1890.
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