Abstract
This article focuses directly on Thea Astley’s publishing history from the time of her involvement with Brisbane’s avant garde in the 1950s, her early inclusion in regional collections, and her emergence as a Miles Franklin prize-winning author, through the enabling pen and advocacy of one of Angus & Robertson (A&R)’s finest fiction editors, Beatrice Davis, to the establishment in the 1980s of Astley’s ultimate author-publisher relationship with Penguin Books and her own overseas literary agent. It will also examine the publishing trajectory of selected novels released and re-issued by the University of Queensland Press (UQP) and Penguin Books, and revisit the divides between writer and editor, publisher and publicist, and the dis/enabling inspiration of difference in the tropics, in the context of the gendered histories of publishing at A&R, Penguin Books and UQP.
Highlights
The prestigious Sydney-based firm Angus & Robertson (A&R) first published Astley’s novels in the late 1950s through to the 1970s; one of these A&R novels was republished in the mid1960s by Sun Books in Melbourne, and the American firm M
When A&R was reshaped in 1973 Astley travelled with her editor, Beatrice Davis, to Thomas Nelson
In the search for an overseas audience Astley was published by Penguin associates, that is Viking in the US, Penguin in UK, and later directly into the American market by Putman
Summary
When A&R was reshaped in 1973 Astley travelled with her editor, Beatrice Davis, to Thomas Nelson (she was published by Jacaranda in Queensland). Penguin Books Australia picked up paperback rights to Astley’s Thomas Nelson hardbacks, and courted her.
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