‘How is the Great Australian Novel going?’ asks a character in Thea Astley’s The Well Dressed Explorer, a Miles Franklin Literary Award-winner in 1962.
When the weighty Cambridge History of the Australian Novel landed on my doorstep I wondered if I would find out. Its editor, David Carter, first among equals as scholar-critic of Australian literature, has assembled 39 essays by leaders in the field, himself included, to chart the journey of the Australian version of this shape-shifting form.
