Australian scholarly journals – Patrick White Catalogue

Scholarly journals

Arthur Streeton, The Creek (1925)

For those interested, a brief overview of the major scholarly and popular journals covering Australian literature. All of these have extensively covered White over the years, and several of them published his short stories, novel excerpts, or occasionally key interviews during his lifetime.

Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian Literature

1987 – present, biannual

Antipodes was founded by the newly formed American Association of Australian Literary Studies to promote Australian literature throughout North America. The journal now has a strong reputation, having published many notable writers of the last 30 years, and produces an annual Bibliography of Australian Literature and Criticism Published in North America. Although it came along too late to include any of White’s debut work, Antipodes interviewed White in 1988, and has since published a significant number of essays on the author.

Australian Book Review (ABR)

1961 – 1974, 1978 – present, monthly (10 issues per year) – Melbourne (original version Adelaide)

Founded in 1961 by Max Harris and Geoffrey Dutton, The Australian Book Review was a product of the “awakening” of Australian literature which took place in the mid-1950s, and flourished by the early 1960s, in no small part due to White’s work. With Rosemary Wighton as co-editor, the magazine plodded along for 13 years but rising costs ultimately put a pin in the publication.

In 1978, under the calm baton of John McLaren, the magazine was revised with support of the National Book Council, with leadership assumed by Kerryn Goldsworthy in due course. The magazine’s aim was to review as many new Australian books as possible but with each passing year Australian literature was burgeoning like never before. By the 1990s, the National Book Council support was fading but – under editors Helen Daniel and then Peter Rose – the magazine found new life by organising writing competitions, increased publication of essays, and ultimately cultivating the support of major libraries and corporations. The magazine is now Australia’s most accessible mainstream literary review, with a podcast, a writing Fellowship program, and numerous popular awards.

Australian Letters

1957 – 1968, quarterly – SA

Founded by Bryn Davies, Geoffrey Dutton, and Max Harris, Australian Letters was decidedly “non-academic” in its approach, while at the same time taking contributions from many important writers and artists of the day, from David Campbell and Randolph Stow to Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan, who were commissioned to create artworks which would accompany certain short stories. Without support from an academic or corporate outlet, the journal relied largely on donations and subscriptions, which helped end its life prematurely. Additionally, as its editors – who had nurtured the magazine without much financial gain – found greater fame as writers, there was less time to dedicate to the project. Nevertheless, the journal was a vital voice during the period 1957 – 1968, arguably one of the most important periods in the history of Australian literature, as a time when OzLit flourished with new possibilities and great debates.

Given his close friendship with Dutton, White was a champion of the magazine, and placed his first self-explanatory essay, The Prodigal Son, there, as well as a pre-publication excerpt from Riders in the Chariot and four of his short stories.

Australian Literary Studies (ALS)

1963 – present, biannual – TAS / QLD

ALS was launched with the aim of being an academic periodical on OzLit, in contrast to the literary-but-not-quite-academic approaches of Meanjin, Southerly, and others, and the decidedly anti-academic mission statement (if not always reality) of Australian Letters. By 1963, this was especially timely. Many schools and universities were adding Australian literature to their curriculum for the first time. The limited literary fare of the 1950s had been challenged and augmented by the rise of new generations and ideas, from Randolph Stow to Thea Astley, from Judith Wright to Shirley Hazzard, from David Ireland to Dal Stivens. The ALS has had a considerable impact on legitimising the study of Australian literature, and was the peak journal of its kind throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, under the guardianship of Laurie Hergenhan. Interest in serious OzLit reached its apex around 1988, in this writer’s opinion, when – in light of the bicentenary, and debates on both sides of that – a flood of diverse writers and influences from both home and abroad led to a flourishing of work, and criticism about that work.

ALS’ focus on criticism, at the expense of creative writing and other pieces, reportedly saw it fall afoul of government grants in the 1990s, and it is now published online-only via the Australian National University. A victim of the “burning library” syndrome of the last two decades, as Geordie Williamson calls it? Or just evidence that our diversified media platforms make it more difficult for serious literary criticism to exist without other content to bolster its popularity?

Australian Quarterly (now AQ)

1929 – 1997, quarterly; 1997 – present, bi-monthly – Sydney

Australian Quarterly, first published in March 1929, took as its focus a range of cultured subjects, from economics and education to literature and the arts. It prospered during the 1940s and 1950s, especially under the editorial banner of poet David Campbell, for whose work Patrick White would develop a lifelong interest. In an era before the glut of literary journals and magazines, AQ published insightful pieces by Henry Handel Richardson, Christopher Brennan, Clement Semmler, James McAuley, Judith Wright, and Vance Palmer, among many other luminaries.

By the 1960s, Australia’s literary consciousness was significantly developed, and the AQ found many specialist rivals for writing on literature and arts. Now published (confusingly given its title) bi-monthly, Australian Quarterly’s focus is politics and social matters.

The Bulletin

1880-2008, weekly

The 19^th century was a golden age for the newspaper, and the Bulletin joined the ranks as a political and popular press outfit. By the 1890s, as Australian federation loomed, the first genuinely Australian literary voices emerged, and the Bulletin’s wide readership, combined with its egalitarian outlook, led to a period in which authentically (and sometimes exaggerated) Australian stories, cartoons and poems resonated with ordinary citizens. A.G. Stephens, editor from 1894, adopted a focus on popular lit, especially with his “Red Page”, where literary reviews and poems flourished. Banjo Paterson, Steele Rudd, Henry Lawson, Ethel Turner, Barbara Baynton, Louis Becke, and Joseph Furphy were just some of the names which resonated during this period.

Over the first half of the 20^th century, the Bulletin remained an icon of Australian culture, with a sometimes aggressively nationalist (and, by default, Anglo) stance, offering space to Mary Gilmore, C.J. Dennis, Dorothea McKellar, Jack McLaren, Kenneth Slessor, and Vance and Nettie Palmer, among others. Many of the notable writers of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s – from Eleanor Dark to Douglas Stewart- were published, as the nationalism of the early days gave way to a certain artistic conservatism, aimed at maintaining readers in an increasingly inventive, and increasingly global, market. From 1961, the Bulletin came under new ownership, and was published in a new format. Although it retained an interest in literature – especially during the editorship of Patrick White’s friend Geoffrey Dutton in the early 1980s – the magazine moved with the times, focusing more on politics and news, and less on the fragmented literature of the modern era. The rise of television and eventually the world wide web, the splintering of popular and serious Australian lit, and the increasingly ideological stance of newspapers in the era of Rupert Murdoch, all did serious damage. The Bulletin was bought into the Packer family holdings in 2007, and ceased publication in January 2008.

Although White did not write for the Bulletin himself, the magazine reported on his doings – and, more often, public reactions to them – during his most prominent years. During Dutton’s editorship, the Bulletin went so far as to celebrate White’s 70^th birthday in grand style – an extravagance which the author did not warm to!

Meanjin

1940 – present, quarterly – Brisbane / Melbourne

Under founding editor Clem Christesen, who steered the ship for more than 30 years, Meanjin presented a leftist view of Australian life, seeking to widen the range of discussion on intellectual and literary ideas. From its inception, the journal commissioned fiction, non-fiction, and illustrations from a wealth of major Australian and overseas figures. Unsurprisingly, Meanjin attracted attention during the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s, but continued to grow its reputation with contributions from Judith Wright, A.A. Phillips, and many more. Meanjin published the first prominent piece on White’s work, by author Marjorie Barnard, in 1956. Subsequently, pre-publication excerpts from three novels – Voss, Riders in the Chariot, and The Solid Mandala – appeared there, as well as three short stories: Being Kind to Titina, Down at the Dump, and Fete Galante. The magazine regularly wrote insightfully about White’s novels and plays.

By the 1980s, under Judith Brett’s editorship, the magazine began changing its format to keep with the times, investigating migrant and Aboriginal literature, and becoming undoubtedly one of the most prominent Australian literary journals during the self-aware era of Australia’s bicentenary. After years of financial uncertainty, and vacillation between academic and popular writing, Meanjin was purchased by The University of Melbourne in 1998, and generally has a contemporary focus that extends beyond lit.

Overland

1954-present, quarterly, Melbourne

Overland emerged out of a journal titled Realist Writer, compiled by the Australian raconteur Bill Wannan, with sympathies toward social realism in writing as well as Communism, which was at its height among the Australian Left. Editor Stephen Murray-Smith would lead the magazine for 34 years, with his motivation to champion Australian work at a high standard, while also encouraging both diverse writers and the ordinary reader. Murray-Smith and his wife Nita were passionate about their ideology, but also about Australia, and finding voices to describe its life and ways. This determination led to a break with the Communist Party before the end of the magazine’s first decade, with Murray-Smith’s desire to choose the most aesthetically pleasing and intelligent works regardless of their ideology.

Throughout its long life, anyone who is anyone has been published in the magazine: Peter Carey and Tim Winton, Elizabeth Jolley and Judith Wright, Janette Turner Hospital, Frank Moorhouse, Geoff Page and Dorothy Hewett. After Murray-Smith’s death in 1988, future editors wandered from his goal by including more academic writing in the journal, however Overland has been seemingly more determined to bridge the gap between ordinary reader and high art than any of its rivals, save the Australian Book Review.

The journal recognised White’s significant talent, but its reviews were not always supportive. Especially early in his career, his high-minded, dense style seemed at odds with Overland’s love of social realism, and art that pertained to real life rather than perceived bourgeois ideals. Nevertheless, White published a few pieces in Overland, including his short story Clay, his poem Defending the Right to Offend (written for the 100^th issue), and his final piece of writing, Credo.

Quadrant

1956 – present, monthly

Engineered at the peak of the Communist hysteria, and originally edited by noted poet James McAuley, Quadrant situated itself as a work supportive of classically liberal philosophies, conservative politics and art, and a belief in freedom above much else. Under its early, renowned editors such as Donald Horne and Peter Coleman, Quadrant attracted a long list of luminaries to its roster. Among them were White’s constant critic A.D. Hope and his lifelong bête noire, Dame Leonie “Killer” Kramer, but also Barry Humphries, Clive James, and many more. White sold one short story, The Letters, to the magazine in 1962, but in time he came to view it as “the organ of the Australian intellectual fascists” and lost all respect for the outfit.

By the mid-1990s, Quadrant had veered dangerously to the right, famously criticising the government report that called for policy amendments in the aftermath of the infamous “Stolen Generations” of Indigenous Australians. From 2008, when revisionist historian Keith Windschuttle took the reins, Quadrant openly adopted the position of conspiratorial rag, with its list of article titles often resembling a sensationalist alien-abduction tabloid rather than a cultural journal. In 2017, Quadrant “joked” that the Manchester Arena bomb should instead have taken place in the studios of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, reflecting the magazine’s right-wing distrust of the public broadcaster. Windschuttle subsequently apologised. In a sense, however the damage was done; AustLit no longer indexes Quadrant, and the journal’s slow descent continues apace.

Southerly

1939 – present, three per year – Sydney

One of the oldest of Australia’s specialist literary journals, Southerly evolved from the work of the Australian English Association, with a focus on recognising Australian literature as a southern branch, so to speak, of the “mother land”. With financial support from publishing house Angus & Robertson, and noted poet R.G. Howarth at the helm, Southerly evolved from a 40-page journal to a weighty tome, published thrice in a year, reviewing White’s first novel in one of its earliest editions. Howarth’s policy had been to write about pan-European lit; his successor, fellow poet Kenneth Slessor, moved the needle towards Australian works, and this was furthered by the subsequent editors, both of whom would be lifelong Patrick White acolytes: G.A. Wilkes (1963-1987), and Elizabeth Webby (1987-1999). Indeed, White gave one of his earliest interviews to the magazine, and one of his later short stories, Five-Twenty, was first published there.

Unfortunately, as of 2022, Southerly appeared to be struggling, with no government funding and lengthy periods of half a year or more between issues.

Westerly

1956-present – annual formerly quarterly Perth

Initially the student magazine of the University of Western Australia, Westerly in the early days had the feel of an underdog, championing the cause of a people who – not unreasonably – felt distant from the rest of the country. By the late 1960s, Westerly was produced by the University’s English Department, publishing such notable writers as Murray Bail, Gwen Harwood, Fay Zwicky, and Frank Moorhouse. The editorial team for a while included Peter Cowan and Bruce Bennett, and later Delys Bird.

From 1982, the magazine was published by the Centre for Studies in Australian Literature, and broadened its scope to include special issues focusing on a theme or a geographical region. In 2000, under a relationship with the literary magazine Salt, Westerly switched to an annual format, with a purview that includes Asian as well as Australian literature. By 2016, Westerly – aided more generously by the university – launched a crowdfunding campaign and released its entire back-catalogue on its website.

Although White was frequently reviewed and analysed by the magazine (especially under the watchful eye of Veronica Brady), he never published anything in it, perhaps reflecting its genuine geographical distance in the far-off 1960s and 1970s.

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