Jacqueline Kent

A Certain Style Jacqueline Kent

Beatrice Davis, 1909-1992, was general editor at Angus and Robertson the main Australian publishing company from 1937 to 1973. There she discovered and published such writers as Thea Astley, Miles Franklin, Patricia Wrightson, Xavier Herbert and Hal Porter becoming a literary tastemaker in the process. A central figure in Australian literature - 'respected, feared, courted and berated.' Originally published to great acclaim in 2001, A Certain Style introduced this stylish and formidable woman to thousands of readers and told a history of books and publishing in twentieth-century Australia. This reissue has a new introduction and updates throughout as the author presents a compelling account of a contradictory woman and her times. 'A simply splendid biography of the formidable, maddening, generous, always enchanting Beatrice Davis. Whether gadfly or godmother to her writers, she was the major developer of a distinctive Australian literature from the 1930s'- RUTH PARK