Quarterly Essay

Quarterly Essay, founded in 2001, is an Australian periodical published by Black Inc., concentrating primarily on Australian politics in a broad sense. Printed in a book-like page size and using a single-column format, each issue features a single extended essay of at least 20,000 words, with an introduction by the editor, and correspondence relating to essays in previous issues.

In early 2004 founding editor Peter Craven was sacked by the magazine's owner, property developer Morry Schwartz, over a dispute about the joint authorship of one essay, and, more widely, the magazine's future direction. Schwartz stated that while he had a vision of the magazine as more "political and Australian" whereas Craven was perhaps "more broad and internationalist".