Wallace Kirsop

Wallace Kirsop (4 November 1933 – 12 August 2026) was an Australian scholar in French studies and book trade history.

Background Wallace Kirsop was born in Chatswood, New South Wales, on 4 November 1933. His parents were William Kirsop, an accountant and avid cricketer, and his wife, Doris Irene Kirsop (née Harris). on Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement, a French poet of the Renaissance who wrote several alchemical works.

Kirsop died on 12 August 2026 at the age of 92.

Academic career Having returned to Australia in 1960, Kirsop worked for two years as a lecturer in French at the University of Sydney. He then moved to Melbourne where he taught French language and literature at Monash University from 1962 until 1998 when he retired. From early in his career at Monash he insisted on a syllabus that moved beyond the normal bounds of French language and literature to include social and cultural history. He also taught advanced undergraduates and postgraduates "reference and physical bibliography" Australian Journal of French Studies. He was the founding editor of the Institute for the Study of French-Australian Relations's Explorations journal In 2008 he was Honorary Director of Monash University's Centre for the Book. The Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand named one of its awards as the "Wallace Kirsop Conference Bursary" as a founding member of the society and a "distinguished member" since 1969.

He was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1980.

Kirsop and his wife together owned some 20,000 books, housed in their home and a nearby apartment. He donated many rare books to the State Library of Victoria and bequeathed the remainder to it.

Awards 1973: Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques 1999: Doctor of Letters (honoris causa) – University of Sydney The Book in Australia: Essays Towards a Cultural and Social History, Clayton : Australian Reference Publications in association with the Centre for Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Monash University, 1988. Joint editor: D. H. Borchardt.

Articles "The Legend of Bernard Palissy", in: Ambix, 1961, Volume 9, Issue 3. "Brennan, critic and scholar", in: Southerly, Vol. 23, No. 3, September 1963: 203–210. "The bibliography of French literary history: progress, problems, projects", in: Australian Journal of French Studies, 1 (1964): 325–364. "The Family of Love in France", in: Journal of Religious History, December 1964. "Vers une collaboration de la bibliographie matérielle et de la critique textuelle", in: Australian Journal of French Studies, 3 (1966): 227–251. "The Greatest Renewal, the Greatest Revelation: Brennan's Commentary on Mallarmé", in: Meanjin Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3, 1970: 303–311. "Literary History and Book Trade History: the Lessons of L'Apparition du livre", in: Australian Journal of French Studies, 16 (1979): 488–535. "Lucien Febvre and the Annales", Australian Journal of French Studies, 1979. "The State of the Discipline: Booksellers and Their Customers: Some Reflections on Recent Research", in: Book History, vol. 1, 1998, 283–303. "Behind the Scenes in Publishing in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Australia", in: Russell, Mary, ed., The Indexing Life: Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers Conference, 15–17 March 2007, Melbourne: Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers Conference, 2007, 22–28. "Libraries for an imperial power", in: Giles Mandelbrote and K. A. Manley, eds., The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, Volume 2: 1640–1850, Cambridge University Press, 2009. "Traditions: Tyranny and Freedom", isfar.org.au, 2016.

Books about Wallace Kirsop David Garrioch et al., eds., The Culture of the Book: Essays from Two Hemispheres in Honour of Wallace Kirsop, Melbourne: Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 1999.

For more comprehensive lists of Kirsop's books and articles, see Wallace Kirsop: Outputs (Monash University) and "Wallace Kirsop: List of Publications", in: David Garrioch et al., eds., The Culture of the Book... (1999)