There’s not much left of the pulp fiction churned out by Australia’s publishing “factories” in the 1940s and 1950s.
But some has survived, thanks to the diligence of private collectors. And it represents a rich period in the nation’s publishing history, according to University of Queensland lecturer in contemporary studies Dr Toni Johnson-Woods.
From 1939 to 1959, she says, high excise taxes effectively banned imports of American literature. And local writers found a ready audience for hardboiled detective fiction with an American twist.
Authors using pseudonyms such as Carter Brown, Larry Kent and Bella Luigi turned out thousands of words a week to produce formula fiction with titles like Walk Softly Witch, Get me Homicide and Nude in the Boot.
Sydney publishing companies like Horwitz and Cleveland printed hundreds of novelettes each month.
The phenomenon was much more than a publishing bonanza, Dr Johnson-Woods says.
As popular literature, the stories reflect contemporary mainstream attitudes, values and trends. And they have been virtually untapped as a research resource.
“The stories may have been short on literary merit but they document the desires, interests and anxieties of the age,” she said.
“This was cheap, disposable, bulk fiction — so ubiquitous most people didn’t see it as anything worth keeping, just as most of us wouldn’t bother to save this week’s TV Guide.
“But those guides reflect life in Australia today, for example the current predilection for reality television shows.”
Dr Johnson-Woods has already done her bit in recording today’s lifestyles for future generations.
She recently published Big Bother, based on the Big Brother television show screened in 20 countries, as a historic document of the reality TV phenomenon. Her Big Bother website has scored a million hits.
Now she’s planning a similar foray into pulp fiction.
Dr Johnson-Woods is organising a display of holdings in the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library and extending her research to other rare collections held in Australian and American universities and libraries.
She’ll be seeking insights into the lives of the authors, the human and commercial aspects of the publishing houses and the books as cultural products. She also hopes to uncover something of the audience, through book reviews or readers’ memoirs before they are lost forever.
“I’m constantly keeping up with contemporary trends and expanding territories,” she said.
“I like to break down barriers between academic and non-academics in analysing and recording what’s important about societies. And sometimes you have to move quickly in fields which mightn’t seem important now but could be in the future.
“For example, most of the Big Brother archives had already disappeared by the time I began my book – and that was just after the first Australian series finished last year.”
For more information, contact Dr Johnson-Woods (telephone 0402 422 112, email t.johnsonwoods@mailbox.uq.edu.au) or Moya Pennell at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2846)
