‘Magazines and newspapers in Australian literature’ is a more troublesome subject than it may at first sight appear. Within its scope lurk issues and problems that preoccupy and sometimes bedevil much Australian literary criticism and cultural commentary. Indeed, the method and content of this book provide a helpful approach to those perennial issues.

Bruce Bennett assembles seventeen quite well-integrated chapters written from various perspectives, on particular magazines and newspapers, and, on magazine activity in specific periods. Cross Currents is therefore scarcely a ‘complete’ reference work or survey, or a sustained argument. It is a valuable contextual and intercontextual prompt to issues, an introduction to selected literary ventures, and a substantial source of previously unavailable documentation and information.