Jenny Horsfield
A Bookshop in Wartime
Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2020
In April 1938 a small bookshop opened for business in Canberra, at a time when Australia’s federal capital was still a country town and Burley Griffin’s vision for its future had been defeated by years of war, depression and political indifference.
In an era which was a golden age for books and booksellers, the bookshop, under its owner and manager Verity Hewitt, became a meeting place for booklovers as well as an art gallery and a library. Scientists, artists, diplomats, servicemen and women, public servants, writers, adventurers and immigrants all visited the shop during the war years.
The bookshop was an important part of the city’s social and cultural history. It witnessed Canberra’s slow change, under the pressures of war, from a rural backwater to a reluctant and still unformed capital city.
About the Author
Jenny Horsfield is a Canberra writer and historian with a strong interest in the lives of post-Federation Australian women, especially those seeking a new and more challenging role at a time of great social change. Jenny’s book Rainbow: the story of Rania MacPhillamy was chosen as Nonfiction Book of the Year at the ACT Writers and Publishers awards in 2008.
