This volume, like so many edited volumes, has an all too lengthy history, much longer than either the contributors or the editor would have wished.Its initial impetus traces back to the Fourth International Workshop on Australian Linguistics: History of research on Australian languages, held in Aarhus University on 24-25 June 2002.Six of the papers in this volume were presented at that workshop, namely those presented in Chapters 1-3, 5, 8, and 17.This represents all of the contributions to the workshop dealing with the historical topic, with a single exception, my own paper on the work of Frs Hermann Nekes and Ernest Worms, which appeared in a reconstituted form in the editorial introduction to their magnum opus, Australian languages (2006, Mouton de Gruyter).The workshop participants agreed that it would be a good idea to publish an edited volume containing these contributions; the conference organiser, myself, was duly dobbed in as editor.However, it was also felt that these six contributions needed to be augmented by additional papers in order to expand the treatment in depth and comprehensiveness.In particular, one of the major gaps was felt to be the lack of contributions by Aboriginal people themselves.Regrettably, despite attempts to obtain such contributions, none eventuated; this is acknowledged as one of the main weaknesses of the present volume.It of course took time to solicit and receive additional contributions, and it took some three years before revised versions of all of the contributions were received, and an initial draft of the entire work took shape.(Regrettably, not all solicited papers were forthcoming, leaving gaps that I would rather have seen plugged-see also my 'Introduction'.)Editorial intervention turned this draft into a more coherent work, and in January 2006 a version of the book was submitted to Pacific Linguistics for evaluation.I was fortunate to receive the referee reports during a two month period as visiting scholar in the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, in mid-2006.This greatly facilitated initial publication negotiations and planning.I thank John Bowden, general editor of Pacific Linguistics, and Julie Manley, for their prompt, cheerful, and helpful responses to my endless queries concerning formatting and other editorial matters.For their insightful and useful comments on the manuscript thanks also go to the 'anonymous' referees, whose identity (as is so often the case) could hardly remain concealed, thanks to intertextuality, Hilary Carey and Peter Sutton.All of the contributors have benefited greatly from their advice.Many other people contributed significantly to the book; they are identified in the individual contributions, as are photograph credits.Last but not least, thanks go to Margaret Blake, whose copy-editor's eye caught all too many inconsistencies, sytlistic infleicities, and omissions before it was too late.
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