A Convergence of Book History and Literary Criticism. Case-Study: Henry Lawson in 1890s Sydney

Abstract

This essay is a literary case-study of the short-story writer Henry Lawson in 1890s Sydney. A book-historical habit of attention to the material circumstances of the original productions is brought to bear. Once the historical and biographical background is established, the essay is shaped around two exemplary acts of Lawson reception, which are simultaneously examples of traditional literary-critical discourse getting into trouble. The critics make certain judgements about what they take to be aesthetic problems, not realizing that they could be fundamentally clarified on a material or book-historical basis. The broader aim of the essay is to raise questions about the role of book-historical method in literary criticism—or, at least, in literary criticism as it could be conducted in the future if the dispersed strands of the neglected concept of the work were regathered and rethought.