AustLit

Considers the burdens carried by the wife who must make all the decisions of married life herself because of a weak husband. (PB)

Alice, the beautiful daughter of a lone widower on the Goulburn River, reunites her father and mother. He believed that his wife had betrayed him with another man and had drowned, but Alice discovers her innocent mother and reconciles them shortly before she dies. (PB)

Maggie, a fair girlish 16 year old with a wealth of golden hair is orphaned by the death of her mother. Without friends or money in Melbourne she can only find work as a barmaid - and the inevitable ruin follows, in the person of Mr George Gabriel. (PB)

A circus equestrienne, Fanny Cotterille, begins her career in Hobart. She is a superb acrobat and even Don Jose Gaudilivo, the arrogant and skilful gymnast and equestrian, is infatuated with her. Her love for the humble but honest Frank Halliday ends tragically when Don Jose exacts his macarbe revenge on the eve of her wedding day in a little village near Launceston. (PB)

On laziness, and in particular the dedicated and ingenious shirker. (PB)

A young orphan brought up in Ireland by her Roman Catholic priest uncle, accompanies him to New Zealand where she falls in love with a 40 year old man. She marries him against her uncle's wishes only to discover he is already married. She flees to Melbourne where she loses her baby and her health, meeting the narrator in Melbourne Hospital. Interesting picture of a Melbourne sewing workroom. (PB)

Description of a group of miners on the Golden Bar, Lower Turon in 1852, and particularly 'Jerry' who looked like a broken man, believed he was an Irish prince, and had been transported to Australia in the 1830s and very unjustly treated. (PB)

On the ruin of a once-prosperous merchant through his inability to say no to charities, speculations etc. Set in Melbourne. (PB)

An Italian nobleman exacts revenge on an old enemy by luring him into the crypt of his house on a pretext of testing wine. (PB)

An up-country surveyor shoots a black snake curled around his leg during a shooting party in Queensland. Straightforward narrative. (PB)

An Australian girl spies her Adonis at a Mechanics' Institute lecture only to discover he is courting her father's new German servant. It is her perfect cure for romance. Lightly ironic. (PB)