Voss and America's middlebrow library: Book-of-the-Month Club chooses Voss

Osborne, Roger (2013) Voss and America's middlebrow library: Book-of-the-Month Club chooses Voss. In: Genoni, Paul, and Dalziel, Tanya, (eds.) Telling Stories: Australian life and literature 1935-2012. Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, pp. 188-194.

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Abstract

In Australia, Patrick White is considered the least middlebrow of writers and yet, during the 1950s, White and his fiction found a prominent place in the most middlebrow of institutions worldwide. In August 1957, White's fifth novel, Voss (1957), was the main selection of the American Book-of-the-Month Club, which meant guaranteed sales of more than 100,000 copies and hence the largest sales of any of White's novels anywhere prior to his 1973 Nobel Prize. White's success was not unprecedented. Over several decades Australian books had been noticed in the influential Book-of-the-Month Club News and a few had been chosen as the Club's main selection. Despite the difficulties of publishing Australian books in the United States of America, many found a prominent place within American print culture, and the most prominent was the Book-of-the-Month Club, America's "middlebrow library."

Item ID: 52714
Item Type: Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN: 978-1-921867-46-0
Copyright Information: Copyright of the collection is held by the editors. Copyright of individual chapters is help by the authors.
Date Deposited: 10 Jan 2021 23:35
FoR Codes: 20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2005 Literary Studies > 200502 Australian Literature (excl Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature) @ 75%
20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2001 Communication and Media Studies > 200104 Media Studies @ 25%
SEO Codes: 95 CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING > 9502 Communication > 950201 Communication Across Languages and Culture @ 100%
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