Reading by Numbers Anthem Scholarship in the Digital Age Anthem Scholarship in the Digital Age investigates the global impact of technology and computing on knowledge and society. Tracing transformations in communication, learning and research, the ground-breaking titles in this series demonstrate the far-reaching effects of the digital revolution across disciplines, cultures and languages. Series Editors Paul Arthur – Australian National University, Australia Willard McCarty – King’s College London, UK Patrik Svensson – Umeå University, Sweden Editorial Board Edward Ayers – University of Richmond, USA Katherine Hayles – Duke University, USA Marsha Kinder – University of Southern California, USA Mark Kornbluh – University of Kentucky, USA Lewis Lancaster – University of California, Berkeley, USA Tara McPherson – University of Southern California, USA Janet Murray – Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Peter Robinson – University of Saskatchewan, Canada Geoffrey Rockwell – University of Alberta, Canada Marie-Laure Ryan – University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Paul Turnbull – University of Queensland, Australia Reading by Numbers Recalibrating the Literary Field KATHERINE BODE Anthem Press An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company www.anthempress.com This edition fi rst published in UK and USA 2012 by ANTHEM PRESS 75-76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK and 244 Madison Ave. #116, New York, NY 10016, USA Copyright © Katherine Bode 2012 The author asserts the moral right to be identifi ed as the author of this work. Cover photograph ‘Bookshelves’ © Alexandre Duret-Lutz 2006 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bode, Katherine. Reading by numbers : recalibrating the literary fi eld / Katherine Bode. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85728-454-9 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Australian literature−History and criticism. 2. Publishers and publishing−Australia−History. 3. Booksellers and bookselling−Australia−History. I. Title. PR9604.6.B63 2012 820.9’994−dc23 2012013680 ISBN-13: 978 0 85728 454 9 (Hbk) ISBN-10: 0 85728 454 1 (Hbk) This title is also available as an eBook. CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii List of Tables and Figures ix Introduction A New History of the Australian Novel 1 Chapter 1 Literary Studies in the Digital Age 7 I Quantitative Method and its Critics 8 II Critical Quantifi cation: Book History and the Digital Humanities 13 Chapter 2 Beyond the Book: Publishing in the Nineteenth Century 27 I Book Publishing: 1830s to 1850s 30 II Serial Publishing 34 III The Cycle of Serial and Book Publishing 40 IV Book Publishing: 1860s to 1880s 43 V Book Publishing: 1890s 47 Chapter 3 Nostalgia and the Novel: Looking Back, Looking Forward 57 I British Domination? 1940s to 1960s 62 II The Golden Age? 1970s to 1980s 70 III Multinational Domination? 1990s to 2000s 79 IV The End of Local Publishing? 1990s to 2000s 88 Chapter 4 Recovering Gender: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century 105 I Feminist Literary Criticism and the Nineteenth Century 107 II Serial Publishing 113 vi READING BY NUMBERS III Book Publishing: 1860s to 1880s 120 IV Gender and the 1890s 124 Chapter 5 The ‘Rise’ of the Woman Novelist: Popular and Literary Trends 131 I Male Domination? 1940s to 1960s 135 II Female Liberation? 1970s to 1980s 143 III Beyond Gender? 1990s to 2000s 153 Conclusion Literary Studies in the Digital Future 169 Notes 175 Bibliography 215 Index 237 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Some of the arguments and ideas present in this book were initially explored in journal articles published in Australian Literary Studies, Australian Feminist Studies, Cultural Studies Review and the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, and in Resourceful Reading, a collection of essays I co-edited with Robert Dixon. However, in these cases, what appears here is greatly expanded and signifi cantly altered. Reading by Numbers also includes a revised and extended version of an article published in Book History. Much of this book was written with the support of an Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Australian Research Council at the University of Sydney and the University of Tasmania. It was completed at the Digital Humanities Hub at the Australian National University. There are many people who have advised and assisted me during this project. I am grateful to the colleagues who have read, and commented on, parts of this manuscript, or earlier versions of these arguments and ideas, including Mark Davis, Robert Dixon, Ken Gelder, Julieanne Lamond, Elizabeth Morrison, Nicola Parsons, Susan Sheridan, Ryan Walter and Elizabeth Webby. I am particularly grateful to Paul Eggert and Williard McCarty, who read, and incisively responded to, the entire manuscript, and to Leigh Dale, who has always offered me invaluable guidance and advice, including in the development and drafting of this book. For their friendship and encouragement during this project, my thanks goes to Miranda Harman, Rebecca Johinke, Kate Mitchell, Tara Murphy, Kaz Ross and Nicola Parsons. Tara also provided lots of very useful advice about collecting and processing the data in AustLit. I am also grateful to Anthem Press for helping me bring this book to press. Not a word of Reading by Numbers could have been written without the dedication and careful attention to detail of hundreds of people, most of whom I do not know. I am referring to the dedicated bibliographers who have developed the AustLit database during its long history and in its many incarnations. My work has also greatly benefi ted from detailed discussion with, and advice from, those I do know at AustLit, especially Carol Hetherington and Roger Osborne. I write these acknowledgements at a time when the future of AustLit appears uncertain. It will be an enormous loss for Australian literary studies, and for current and future research in book history and digital humanities, if this database closes or is no longer maintained to its current level. I hope that, in demonstrating some of what is possible with AustLit, this book will contribute to the arguments for the ongoing funding of this resource and other digital archives. Reading by Numbers is dedicated to all who have worked at AustLit, and to the viii READING BY NUMBERS careful scholarship, and fascinating permutations of bibliography, that this resource demonstrates. Finally, I am grateful, not only for support in the writing of this book but for all sorts of things, to my wonderful family, including my brother Michael (for answering many mathematical questions), my sisters Helen and Rachael (for always having time to talk and always encouraging me) and my parents (for everything – including proof reading). Very special thanks has to go to Ben Williams, for his patience during the long time it took to write this book, and especially for listening to me talk, at length, about quantitative methods and trends in literary history, while really wanting to talk about the latest books we’d both read. LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Tables Table 1 Top ten book publishers of Australian novels, 1830 to 1859 30 Table 2 Top ten periodical publishers of Australian novels, 1860 to 1889 36 Table 3 Top ten book publishers of Australian novels, 1860 to 1889 44 Table 4 Top ten book publishers of Australian novels, 1890 to 1899 49 Table 5 Top ten publishers of Australian novels, 1945 to 1969 64 Table 6 Top ten publishers of Australian novels, 1970s and 1980s 74 Table 7 Top ten publishers of Australian novels, 1990s and 2000s 82 Figures Figure 1 Place of fi rst book publication of Australian novels, percentages, 1830 to 1899 (by decade) 29 Figure 2 Form of publication of Australian novels, percentages, 1830 to 1899 (by decade and date of fi rst publication) 29 Figure 3 Number of serialised Australian novels, published in Australia and total, 1860 to 1899 (two-yearly totals) 38 Figure 4 Australian novels by category of publisher, percentages, 1945 to 2009 (fi ve-yearly averages) 59 Figure 5 Number of Australian novels, overall and by Australian, British and multinational publishers, 1945 to 2009 (fi ve-yearly totals) 60 Figure 6 Australian novels by category of publisher, percentages, 1930 to 1969 (fi ve-yearly averages) 61 Figure 7 Number of Australian novels by category of publisher, 1930 to 1969 (fi ve-yearly totals) 65 Figure 8 Australian novels by category of publisher, percentages, 1970 to 1989 (fi ve-yearly averages) 73 Figure 9 Australian novels (excluding local pulp fi ction) by category of publisher, percentages, 1970 to 1989 (fi ve-yearly averages) 76 x READING BY NUMBERS Figure 10 Australian novels by Australian and multinational publishers, percentages, 1950 to 1989 (fi ve-yearly averages) 77 Figure 11 Australian genre/non-genre novels, percentages, 1970 to 2009 (two-yearly averages) 86 Figure 12 Australian genre/non-genre novels published in Australia (excluding Horwitz and Cleveland titles), percentages, 1970 to 2009 (two-yearly averages) 87 Figure