Essays in French Literature and Culture is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Western Australia. It was established in 1964 by James R. Lawler, the Foundation Chair of French Studies at this university. The journal focuses on French Studies, in a broad sense. From its inception, the journal's main aim has been "to draw attention to broader aspects of French literary culture". Since 2022, the journal has. been available both in print and in soft copies, as well as Open Access for free (after a 3 months grace period). and indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
 The journal was established in 1964 by James R. Lawler.
In 1975, the journal's editorship passed on to Denis Boak who, in a commemorative issue celebrating the journal's fiftieth anniversary, argues that Essays in French Literature was a "free-standing intellectual endeavour" providing "an extra outlet for young scholars to publish". He was succeeded by Andrew Hunwick in 1995. Hélène Jaccomard took over in 2007.A growing interest in cultural studies in the field of French studies led to a widening of the scope of the journal and its renaming in 2008. The new title reflects this wider emphasis on culture.
In the context of the crisis in academic publishing, and as one of only two French Studies academic journals in Australia, Essays in French Literature and Culture has shown a remarkable ability to survive thanks to the quality of the articles it stringently selects, the thorough double-blind evaluation by independent assessors, and its widening readership which is its only financial means of support.
In the first forty years of its existence, the journal published essays spontaneously submitted to the Editors. Since 2007 many issues have been thematic and guest edited by experts in the field.
The journal's standing is acknowledged by the Australian Society of French Studies and Informit database.
 
 Thematic section : Matters of Taste/Questions de goûts, Edited by Prof.Véronique Duché, A. R. Chisholm Professor of French at the University of Melbourne. 
 Véronique Duché, Matters of taste 
Tsolag Paloyan, L’assomption du (bon) goût de l’indétermination 
Dimitri Garncarzyk,  Retour sur la connaissance des règles par le sentiment : et si le goût selon Charles Batteux était une vertu esthétique ? 
Karine Brière, Penser et écrire le « bon goût » au XIXe siècle français 
Helen Craske, Arbitrating the Arbitrary? Taste in Rachilde’s Fin-de-Siècle Book Reviews 
Doherty, Atticus, Fanaux du vieil espoir: The Aesthetics of Reversion in Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Roman de Durtal 
Miscellaneous section 
Ruth Amar, The Realistic and Sociological Aspects of the Contemporary French Novel
 - issue nr 45: Foreign? Writing in French (2008)
- issue nr 46 : Sports (2009)
- issue nr 47 and 48: Landscape and Memory (2010 and 2011)
- issue nr 49: The Paratext (2012)
- issue nr 50: Playtime (2013)
- issue nr 51: Représenter la Grande Guerre: les écrivains et les artistes face à l’épreuve (1914-1920) (2014)
- issue nr 52: Diaspora, Afropolitanism and Congolese Literature (2015)
- issue nr 53: Conflict, dialogue and representation (2016)
- issue nr 54: Hidden Words, Hidden Worlds (France 1939–1945) (2017)
- issue nr 55 : Miscellaneous (2018).
- issue nr 56 : “Mines de rien”. L’Antillaise et l’Afropéenne face aux tropologies, entre mythes et réalités au fil du temps (2019)
- issue nr 57 : Identité et Environnement (2020) 
- issue nr 58 : The Critical French Medical Humanities (2021) 
- issue nr 59 : Retranslation revisited/La Retraduction revisitée (2022) 
 
 The journal is abstracted and indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index, and EBSCO and ProQuest databases.