Secondary Source Report: The Conditions of Fame:Literary Celebrity in Australia between the Wars- David Carter

Secondary Source Report:

The Conditions of Fame:Literary Celebrity in Australia between the Wars

Written by: David Carter

Hayley Fitzgerald

Complete citation:

Carter, D. (2015). The Conditions of Fame: Literary Celebrity in Australia between the Wars. Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 39, (1), pp. 170-187.doi: 10.2979/jmodelite.39.1.170

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Credit:  April 1^st, 1939 issue of Vogue, retrieved from the Vogue Archives: https://archive.vogue.com/issue/19390401

 

Key Words include: Australia / celebrity / periodicals / modernity / authorship 

 

Brief Overview: 

The journal article written by David Carter discusses modern celebrity through the rise of cinema and radio, alongside them authorial fame rose also. As a result, Australian magazines from the 1920s-1930s would “register the impact of modernity and celebrity” (pg. 170). Carter also discusses the statement of “Australia’srelations to Britain and the US meant that attaching celebrity to Australian authors remained problematic, despite editorial investments in representing local books and writing as aspects of a modern life or personality.” (pg. 170) throughout the article.

Summary of key points: 

Specifically, The Victorian Era rose the interest in design, fashion and celebrity culture across the nation.

Magazines from this time period primarily were about fame and celebrity gossip.

Important Quotations:

“The magazines followed advertising and advertising followed the magazines, modernizing them through fashionable iconography and the deployment of celebrity names and faces.” (pg.173)

“it is useful to think of these magazines as occupying the same public sphere as the commercial theatre, which was also their bread and butter: they were over owing with theatre reviews, news and gossip, celebrity and personality features, and photo-galleries of theatre stars.” (pg. 173)

“Writers might be “characters,” but writing in the local context was scarcely con- nected to glamor, modernity, or international mobility. Few local writers, if any, stood out from journalism asauthors in the fullest sense of the term, embodying “literary personality” in the manner of a Wells or a Bennett.” (pg. 178)

"The features around which the two modern magazines were organised are those described by Faye Hammill in regard to their international contemporaries, Vogue and Vanity Fair, both of which were available in Australia: Vanity Fair competitve at an annual subscription of £1.10.0 and Vogue expensive at £2.8.0 compared to Home at 10s.6d. Vogue and Vanity Fair readers, “elite in class rather than intellectual terms,” were encouraged “to seek distinction in all aspects of their lives” (Hammill, Women 36)" (pg. 184)

 

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project: 

 The journal article is helpful to our group or individual project as it raises interesting points in regard to the rise of fame and celebrities in Australia during this time period. It also uses examples of both Australian and international magazine names to compare and contrast celebrity and modernity uses, as well as, as the ideologies behind the uses of using cinema and radio rising celebrities with advertisements throughout the magazines.