AustLit

'During the 19th century, throughout the Anglophone world, most fiction was first published in periodicals. In Australia, newspapers were not only the main source of periodical fiction, but the main source of fiction in general. Because of their importance as fiction publishers, and because they provided Australian readers with access to stories from around the world—from Britain, America and Australia, as well as Austria, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, and beyond—Australian newspapers represent an important record of the transnational circulation and reception of fiction in this period.

Investigating almost 10,000 works of fiction in the world’s largest open-access collection of mass-digitized historical newspapers (the National Library of Australia’s Trove database), A World of Fiction reconceptualizes how fiction traveled globally, and was received and understood locally, in the 19th century. Katherine Bode’s innovative approach to the new digital collections that are transforming research in the humanities is a model of how digital tools can transform how we understand digital collections and interpret literatures in the past.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

To Be Continued... is a 'collection of fiction enables important new insights into the development of Australian literary, publishing and reading culture, including what early Australians were reading, where it came from, and how it was published and understood.'

Source: To be continued... website.

'Nell has a friend in need but will her kind heart wreck her chance for future happiness? A meddlesome prank and a stray kitten bring Helen and Gabriel together but will he be able to admit his feelings? When Lily goes missing will Archibald trust his wife or listen to the 'evidence' of family friends? Is Marie's runaway kookaburra the last straw or the answer to her problems? Will Teresa's faith in the Madonna bring her beloved Carlo home safely from the coral fishing?

'Catherine Martin's loyal, wilful and feisty heroines traverse the terrains of romance in Italy, Switzerland and Australia in these nineteenth-century tales of manners.

'Catherine Martin (1848?-1937) was the author of poems, essays, short stories and novels, including the popular An Australian Girl (1890). All the stories in this collection were published in the Australian press between 1881 and 1898. They have never been published in book form before.

'The book includes an introduction by Katherine Bode, an Associate Professor at the Australian National University working in digital humanities, literary studies and book history. Her Australian Research Council funded project, To Be Continued, has unearthed an astonishing bibliographic index and full-text archive of fiction in Australian newspapers from 1803 to 1955.' (Publication summary)

'The Olympics were in full swing when I was approached to be part of a town hall forum on gender equality in Australian literature at James Cook University. I have never watched much sport. But in July 2016 I had a three-month old baby to look after, meaning I was spending a lot of time on the couch watching daytime television; and when the Olympics are on, there’s not much other daytime television on offer.' (Introduction)

'Publication of Australian novels and discussion of this phenomenon have long been sites for the expression of wider tensions between national identity and overseas influence characteristic of postcolonial societies...' (Introduction)

'Based on an analysis of the largest collection of mass-digitized newspapers available internationally, this article critiques current approaches to digital periodical studies, particularly relating to network analysis, while radically revising existing accounts of fiction reprinting and syndication in nineteenth-century Australia. It challenges the perceived dominance of Tillotson's Fiction Bureau in this market and the associated ascendancy of syndicated British fiction over local writing. Turning to the critically neglected provincial press, it shows that these newspapers published and reprinted more fiction than their metropolitan counterparts. This material was supplied by an extensive, active, and hitherto essentially unrecognized array of syndication agencies operating within and beyond the colonies.' (Publication abstract)

'Two and a half decades ago in this journal Elizabeth Morrison made an impassioned and persuasive case for creating an index to serial fiction in Australian (or Australasian) newspapers...'

Resourceful Reading re-examines and re-invigorates Australian literary criticism and history by integrating traditional, qualitative approaches to literary studies with empirically-rich methodologies including data-mining and quantitative analysis. This community aims to contribute to AustLit as well as to maximize the potential of this important, data-rich resource.

Data resulting from five separate but linked research projects was the digital end product of Resourceful Reading.

The five linked projects were :

– Professor Gillian Whitlock's Late 20th Century Anthologies

– Professor Gillian Whitlock's Asylum Seeker Narratives

– Professor Robert Dixon's Australian Literature in the 'Translation Zone'

– Professor Leigh Dale's Australian Newspaper Reviews of 1930

– Dr. Katherine Bode's Reading by Numbers

More information on each project can be found in the individual project pages.