The Supplement to The Bibliography of Australian Literature (BAL) completes the most comprehensive reference to Australian creative writing ever published. The four volumes of BAL recorded details of all separately published creative literature by Australian writers from 1788 to 2000. Core genres covered were poetry, fiction, drama and children's writing. This Supplement includes some 2700 new Australian authors and over 7000 titles by them, published before 2001. It also provides new and updated information on many of the authors listed in the original four volumes. BAL and the Supplement have no canon. All books and pamphlets in the core genres published by Australian authors are included, regardless of perceived or accepted literary merit. To BAL, the self-published book of verse is as important as the prize-winning novel by an established author. For each work in a core genre, details of the first edition and, where applicable, the first Australian, UK, US, Canadian and New Zealand editions are listed, as well as significant new or revised editions and translations. Awards won and additional information relevant to individual authors and titles are also included. Where an author has also published in other fields (eg: biography), titles are selectively listed under 'Other Works' or mentioned in the 'Comment/s' section. Indexes of titles and pseudonyms and various writing names enhance the extensive alphabetical author listing. This Supplement, like its predecessors, is an essential source for the study of Australian literature to the end of the twentieth century.
John Arnold has had a long association with Monash University beginning as an arts undergraduate in the late sixties and early seventies. After working as a research assistant, bookseller and librarian, he returned to Monash in 1989 to join the recently established National Centre for Australian Studies. He retired from Monash as an Associate Professor at the end of 2012. In addition to being the co-editor of The Bibliography of Australian Literature, he has published widely in the fields of Australian studies and the history of the book.
Terence O'Neill, formerly an Assistant Registrar at the University of Melbourne, worked as a bibliographer at the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University from 1993 until 2020. His publications include Australian Children's Books to 1980: A Select Bibliography (1989) (with Frances O'Neill). He was Associate Editor of the second, third and fourth volumes of The Bibliography of Australian Literature (2004-2008), and co-compiler of the first volume (2001) and of The List of Australian Writers (1995).
Christopher Wood, a former Research Fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, worked as a bibliographer on The Bibliography of Australian Literature for more than twenty years, during which time the first four volumes appeared in print. He has also worked as a rare books librarian and in the antiquarian book trade.
Rowan Gibbs, after studying and briefly teaching Classics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, has been an antiquarian bookseller for almost fifty years with a special interest in Australasian literature, on which he has published a number of articles and bibliographies.
