Rare are the books with the word ‘Bibliography’ in the title which afford such entertainment. It’s even illustrated! Last century, as a young bookseller, I scouted the shelves of second-hand bookshops hopeful of such ‘finds’ as this volume lists. It is the ‘gossipy’ nature of Access Denied which makes it so attractive.
While the work is scholarly in intent the information is often sourced from hearsay, pencilled notes, contradictory assertions, personal correspondence. It revives forgotten scandals from our literary past. Cains distinguishes suppression from censorship, which is a government’s official attempt to protect vulnerable citizens or national sovereignty. Suppression is largely motivated by self-preservation. Access Denied covers accounts of libel, hoax and fraud, outright error, indecency, plagiarism (sometimes involving household names in Australian literature), insolvency, political pressure, cultural sensitivities … the list goes on.
Sometimes suppression occurs before publication, sometimes well after the horse has truly bolted. The variety ranges from the outright funny to the downright tragic. The arrangement is alphabetical, the time span from Cook almost to COVID, and the range of printed matter is wide; the arts, military, exploration and ethnology components being especially interesting.
Cains expects that his pioneering effort will be expanded in the future. I could add a choice novel myself. If it is, I do hope someone has the time to correct the typos and a few other errors before it arrives at the printer again.
Reviewed by Judith Crabb
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Medical doctor and bibliophile Geoffrey Cains has worked in the private practice of Clinical Dermatology in South Western Sydney and in public hospitals in New South Wales. He was Head of the Department of Dermatology at Liverpool Hospital, conducted medical clinics, taught undergraduates and postgraduates, and undertook research at the Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research. He currently has an academic appointment with the University of Wollongong, where he lectures to medical undergraduates in dermatology.
As Australia’s leading private collector of Australian literary manuscripts, he established the annual National Biography Award for life-writing in 1996 and the annual National Biography Award Lecture in 1998. His important collection of Australian literary manuscripts and literary letters was acquired by the State Library of Victoria in 2013.
Geoffrey Cains was awarded a PhD in Australian Literature from Monash University in 2016 for his thesis on suppressed Australian books, which lead to this bibliography, Access Denied. In 2018, he was appointed as the inaugural Visiting Scholar at the State Library of New South Wales. He is currently working on a bibliography of Cornstalk Books, an imprint of Angus & Robertson.
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