Ignored by literary historians, consumed quietly by the reading public, Australian crime fiction has been evident enough to readers of Miller and MacCartney’s classic bibliography, and restates its bloodied but unbowed presence in two forthcoming reference tools: Margaret Murphy’s Bibliography of Women Writers in Australia, many of whom write thrillers, and in Allen J. Hubin’s near-future th ... (read more)
Stephen Knight
Stephen Knight is an Honorary Research Professor in Literature at the University of Melbourne, having taught previously at the Universities of Sydney and Cardiff, U.K. His most recent books are Australian Crime Fiction: A 200-Year History (Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland) and The Fiction of G.W.M. Reynolds – The Man Who Outsold Dickens (New York and London, Routledge).
If, as Dr Johnson opined, a lexicographer is a harmless drudge, what does that make a lexicographical reviewer? A potentially harmful drudge perhaps. Who else feels the need to consume a dictionary whole in one indigestible sequence?
Drudgery indeed, and potentially harmful if as with the malign convention in this kind, the reviewer summarises the preface, reports a few humorous entries, takes ex ... (read more)