AustLit

A young man of Vienna wins the hand of a sexton's daughter at a very high price - a night spent atop the Cathedral through the old sexton's schemes, its hardships turning his hair white. (PB)

Romance of youth dispelled in fortunate old age. A happily married couple of 50 years have an irritating guest staying with them - who is eventually revealed as the great love of the husband's life, treasured secretly through his years of otherwise perfect happiness. His wife's quiet scheme removes his last illusion. (PB)

A woman marries against her father's wishes and lives a life of poverty with her drunken husband. She leaves him for the child's sake but in the divorce she only has custody until he is 7. The child dies on the eve of his 7th birthday - as his mother had prayed rather than have him suffer through his father's revenge. Thin but subject strong - women's legal rights, custody etc. (PB)

A grandfather's account of a hoax played in his youth on a farm when he and his brother convinced themselves they had hung a farm hand ... but it was only a Guy Falkes doll. Plain, competent tale. (PB)

A pub tale of the narrator's adventures as a fire-brigade volunteer in Melbourne in the 1860s - of a daring rescue of a young woman that resolves into a dream. Thin, with incidental but interesting references to the brigade. (PB)

On the loss of weight and the heating elements in coal - and a practical way to prevent it. (PB)

An officer on a steamer sailing from Madeira to Southampton rescues four sailors and a young woman from a lifeboat on the open sea. Romance follows with the apparently penniless and orphaned girl in the care of the officer and his aunt - and only then does he discover his fiancee to be an heiress, teaching for a time in Malta as a governess to escape fortune hunters. Light. (PB)

Rev. Dr. Ritchie of Edinburgh meets his match in a student he examines. (PB)

Escaped madman genre. Two men meeting on an English country path mistake each other for a recently escaped lunatic - and only learn the truth when they meet at Arch Hall. (PB)

US anecdote of the narrator's surly mood on a train trip from New York to Albany and a farmer's mischievous interchange with him. (PB)

The eager reception given two young women visiting a newspaper office. (Change from the cynical stance usually taken.) (PB)

Account of the British painter's failure to finish a portrait of Christopher Sly because of the substitute model's head for alcohol. (PB)

English 'ghost' story. A widow's visit to an English country house is disturbed by a thief's entry into her bedroom - but most put it down to the ghost which supposedly haunted the room. Ten years later she recognises the thief in court and he is convicted. (PB)

A landlord's revenge on a railway traveller who complains about the food. Probably Australian. (PB)

Lady Mary Pettigrew and Lord Grayton meet at a dance in a lunatic asylum, each mistaking the other for an inmate. Fanciful, lightly amusing. (PB)

US tale. A Russian emigre tells his American lodging-house neighbour the secret of his aged face and bitterness - betrayal by the wife he had loved when an officer in the Russian army. He dies on the night he hears from his wife, herself dying, that she had sacrificed herself for his release from prison. Slight. (PB)

A young girl's first entry into society introduces her to Captain Chichester and to the enmity of several women. A cruel trick leads her to declare her feelings to him in a note - which he answers with the news that he is engaged. Several months of seclusion pass - but all ends happily. Slight main interest is in the bitchiness of the women. (PB)

A boy reveals the truth of his mother's sale of their chickens to the visiting minister. (PB)

US tale of precognition. A Vermont farmer's dreams of the murder of his wife and children by thieves causes him to return home early from a trip - in time to save them. (PB)

The influence of a mother's requst to her son, a sailor, not to drink spreads beyond his own life. Sentimental moral! (PB)