Biography of a Book

Paul Eggert is professor emeritus of English literature and Australian Research Council professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales (Canberra).

‘Biography of a Book: Henry Lawson's While the Billy Boils is ... beautifully designed and produced. It is highly readable and intellectually audacious: the biography of a book rather than an author.’

• List of illustrationsPrefaceAbbreviationsNote on currencyChronologyIntroduction: lives of works1. A writing career in the making: Lawson’s early life2. Lawson in the literary marketplace: the Worker, the Bulletin and Short Stories in Prose and Verse3. Author and publisher: Lawson and Angus & Robertson4. The revision and copy-editing of While the Billy Boils: Lawson and Arthur W. Jose5. The making of a book: texts and illustrations6. Respecting the marketplace: the publishers’ natural wish to make a fat 5s. volume7. Lawson’s no longer: publication of While the Billy Boils8. Early reception of While the Billy Boils: the first five years9. Who made the money, and how much?; or, why Lawson went to England10. ‘Pursuing literature’: Lawson’s stories in Britain 1900–190211. The afterlife of While the Billy Boils12. Lawson’s reputation in the postwar period13. Australian literary criticism and scholarly editing from the 1980s: While the Billy Boils as cross-section Appendix 1: a production history of Edward Dyson’s Rhymes from the MinesAppendix 2: the curious history of the Frank Mahony illustrations in While the Billy BoilsAppendix 3: postwar printings of While the Billy Boils and prose selectionsAppendix 4: Angus & Robertson’s record-keepingIndex