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Doomed single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1899... 1899 Doomed
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Jim Turner receives news of the death of his friend, the third of a group of five who were involved in the murder of an Aboriginal woman and her baby many years before. Believing that she cursed them to all die violent deaths, Jim feels his own is inevitable. While travelling with his wife and child and the fifth member of the original party, a violent incident leads to him being blinded and to the death of his remaining friend. Turner suffers for years before finally dying, all the while claiming that his final sight before being blinded was of an Aboriginal woman and her child staring at him. 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Australian Town and Country Journal vol. 58 no. 1525 29 April 1899 Z589281 1899 newspaper issue 1899 pg. 35
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction Ken Gelder (editor), Rachael Weaver (editor), Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007 Z1415120 2007 anthology short story extract horror mystery science fiction historical fiction children's (taught in 7 units)

    'This anthology collects the best examples of Australian gothic short stories from colonial times. Demonic bird cries, grisly corpses, ghostly women and psychotic station-owners populate a colonial landscape which is the stuff of nightmares.

    'In stories by Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune and Henry Lawson, the colonial homestead is wracked by haunted images of murder and revenge. Settlers are disoriented and traumatised as they stumble into forbidden places and explorers disappear, only to return as ghostly figures with terrible tales to tell. These compelling stories are the dark underside to the usual story of colonial progress, promise and nation-building, and reveal just how vivid the gothic imagination is at the heart of Australian fiction.' (Publication summary)

         Carlton : Melbourne University Press , 2007     pg. 113-116
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Ghost Stories and Mysteries Ernest Favenc , James Doig (editor), Rockville : Borgo Press , 2013 Z1925098 2013 selected work short story horror mystery 'This book collects thirty-one of Favenc's best stories, many published here for the first time since their original publication; and aims to showcase Favenc's talent as the most important Australian colonial writer of Gothic and supernatural fiction. The stories span the period 1875-1907, and demonstrate the richness and variety of his art, making this a major publishing event for enthusiasts of nineteenth-century crime and weird fiction' (back cover).
         Rockville : Borgo Press , 2013     pg. 192-195
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Works about this Work

Leave No Trace Madeleine Watts , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: The Believer , 1 April no. 124 2019;
Leave No Trace Madeleine Watts , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: The Believer , 1 April no. 124 2019;
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (1)
Last amended 19 Sep 2022 11:19:58
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