Price Warung’s Fiction

Abstract

That William Astley was the Sydney Bulletin's most frequent short-story contributor of the 1890s is in itself remarkable: first, as an indication of the hold 'The System' still had on the imagination of the editors of what Vance Palmer has called 'the chief instrument for expressing and defining the national being' during the period; and second, as a reflection of the growing acceptability of realism as a literary mode in Australia. It is with the latter point in mind that I am prompted to comment on Barry Andrews' valuable checklist of Astley's fiction in 'Price Warung: Some Bibliographical Details and A Checklist of the Stories' (ALS, III, 4, October 1968).