Start Date
31-5-2022 11:00 AM
End Date
31-5-2022 11:15 AM
Description
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author in possession of a manuscript must be in want of a good publisher. When the manuscript is a cookery book, the well-known examples of Eliza Acton, reputedly inspired by a conversation with Mr Longman, and Isabella Beeton, who collaborated with her publisher husband, clearly demonstrate that publishers play a key role in determining whose ideas circulate, to whom they are presented and in what form.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the British book trade had transformed into a mass manufacturing industry and British publishers saw the colonies as promising markets for their expanding business. Cassell and Ward Lock established offices in Melbourne in 1884 and Australia and New Zealand became the prime destination for all categories of British books. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century books imported into Australia continued to facilitate the movement of British culinary culture. As local print culture developed, colonial publishers remained reluctant to take risks on home-grown cookery writers and actively promote their work.
This paper examines how the development of the book trade and local publishing in Australia influenced the availability of culinary literature. Through an exploration of the experiences of local cookery writers and an examination of the categories of books produced in Australia it demonstrates the impact local publishers had on the movement of culinary knowledge and their influence on the progress of Australian culinary culture.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/qhv0-eh90
Publishing and the Circulation of Culinary Literature in Australia 1860–1940
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author in possession of a manuscript must be in want of a good publisher. When the manuscript is a cookery book, the well-known examples of Eliza Acton, reputedly inspired by a conversation with Mr Longman, and Isabella Beeton, who collaborated with her publisher husband, clearly demonstrate that publishers play a key role in determining whose ideas circulate, to whom they are presented and in what form.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the British book trade had transformed into a mass manufacturing industry and British publishers saw the colonies as promising markets for their expanding business. Cassell and Ward Lock established offices in Melbourne in 1884 and Australia and New Zealand became the prime destination for all categories of British books. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century books imported into Australia continued to facilitate the movement of British culinary culture. As local print culture developed, colonial publishers remained reluctant to take risks on home-grown cookery writers and actively promote their work.
This paper examines how the development of the book trade and local publishing in Australia influenced the availability of culinary literature. Through an exploration of the experiences of local cookery writers and an examination of the categories of books produced in Australia it demonstrates the impact local publishers had on the movement of culinary knowledge and their influence on the progress of Australian culinary culture.