SOURCE: Green, H. M. “Magazines.” In A History of Australian Literature: Pure and Applied, Volume I, 1789-1923, pp. 719-36. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1961.

In the following essay, Green chronicles the history of the Bulletin and discusses other Australian literary periodicals published between 1880 and 1931.

This was the great age of the Australian magazine. That does not imply, of course, that its standards have not in a number of instances been reached or surpassed, but it suddenly burgeoned in a manner that would not have been expected by anyone unacquainted with the predisposing causes, leaving the succeeding age to proceed with a more regular and calculable development. In appearance, in quality, in number, and generally speaking in length of life the magazine was far ahead of its predecessors: it reflected the literary florescence of the literature to which it belonged, and the Bulletin and its Red Page, the Bookfellow, the Lone...