Osborne, Roger (2026) Book Review of "The Uses of Literacy in Colonial Australia" by Martyn Lyons. London, United Kingdom, Anthem Press, 2026. ISBN: 9781839995170. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 26 (2). pp. 1-2.

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Abstract

[Extract] Martyn Lyons has had a distinguished career in the field of book history with significant contributions to the history of readers and reading. Co-authored with Lucy Taska, his Australian Readers Remember: An Oral History of Reading, 1890–1930 (1992) broke new ground in developing an understanding of reading practices in Australia by focusing on the reading of everyday Australians. His subsequent research on reading and writing practices in France further demonstrated the value of looking beyond literary or elite readers to understand society on a larger scale than literary histories allow. Lyons’s latest book, The Uses of Literacy in Colonial Australia (2026), adds to his body of research by foregrounding the range of everyday literacies that developed in the wake of European settlement and the introduction of print to the continent. Drawing on a variety of published and archival resources, Lyons presents a rich and diverse reading and writing culture that provides a firm foundation for future researchers to build on.

Item ID:	94615
Item Type:	Article (Book Review)
ISSN:	1833-6027
Copyright Information:	© 2026 the author. Articles are made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
Date Deposited:	12 Nov 2026 05:26
FoR Codes:	47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100%
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