AustLit

'In 'William Albert Amiet, Barrister-at-Law, M.A., Reads His Way through the Great War', Cleary reconstructs the reading history of William Albert Amiet, a Queensland barrister who served in the Australian Imperial Forces as a company commander and was a member of Australia's nascent intellectual elite, A voracious reader, Amiet's diaries show him engaging with a highly varied range of British and European literature during the war: highbrow, classic and popular Amiet clearly saw himself as belonging to the British reading nation and his habits of literary consumption reflect that sense of allegiance, at once both Australian and Imperial subject. Cleary's essay is part of a new trend in Australian book history that emphasises the transnational nature of both the book and trade and settler identity during the period. (Editors introduction 18)