AustLit

Domestic. A burdened wife at last rebels against her husband's ceaseless complaints. Brief; slight. (PB)

Slight Australian romance. A bush school teacher marries her suitor only after her mother dies and she can confess her father's dishonour. He marries her freely. Insubstantial. (PB)

Courtship. A wealthy man courts his son's lady while he is out of town - part of an agreement to check her motives. He proposes but is refused as she prefers his son. Slight, happy tone; close to father-son rivalry. (PB)

Courtship etiquette. A mother questions her daughter about kissing a young man goodnight - and discovers her instructions have not been sufficiently precise. (PB)

Set in Arizona and on an Australian station. A US rancher reverts to his horse-stealing ways when he discovers his wife loves another. Though she is faithful he leaves her and is eventually believed killed in crossing a river to evade a posse - shooting the sherrif on the way. He settles in Victoria with his profits but accidentally meets his former wife - now married to her true lover - and his child one day. He arranges money for her anonymously and dies rescuing her and the baby from a bushfire. Interesting for its US/Australia connections. US outlaw seeking anonymity and respectability in Australia. (PB)

London sketch of the Marquis of Waterford punishing an insolent rapacious cabby by fighting him in an archbishop's regalia. Humour? (PB)

Set in England. Men, marriage and babies. A gentleman's racing party to Epsom is surprised when their hamper is found to contain a baby - which Tom Villars mistakes for his own. A practical joke played by his sister-in-law - her suitor and the butler assisting - teaches him to value his wife and child a little more highly. Comic. General comments on the lack of domesticity in certain husbands. Touch of social satire of racing parties. (And - naturally - the baby so hidden belongs to a poor woman, is not the lord and heir of the Villars'.) (PB)

The Duke comes aboard the British commodore's ship in plain clothes - but is not invited to lunch with the others until he realises he must return to his own ship and don his uniform. Royal identity, naval etiquette, etc. (PB)

Horse-racing tale. Bets accepted on the favourite by bookies, including from a headstrong reckless young gentleman, seem to be bound to be lost when a race is stacked. But the victory is overturned when a canny owner protests against the weight - the presumed death of another owner helps tip the balance. Humour and strategy. (PB)

Adventure and romance in Waverley, Sydney. A penniless gentleman is shot while preventing a burglary in a merchant's suburban villa. He is nursed back to health by the family, falls in love with the daughter, is given a position in the father's compnay - and romance blossoms. Lightly humorous. Some comments on the discomforts of penury. (PB)

A Mississippi steamer accident reveals an overbearing proponent of predestination in his true colours. (PB)

Sprightly tale of a young 16 year-old girl's last taste of childhood and her entry into love and courtship. Love for her dog Toby, romps with her brothers, an evening of theatricals in male attire exposed; banishment from the drawing-room for a year amd the consequent end of an adolescent flirtation are finally ended by the love of a rising young solicitor. Humorous especially observations on her older sister's suitor, bald lisping Mr Boos, and her fear of her father. [Some sense of Lolita in her 'wakening' - proposal and kiss.] (PB)

A thief's determination to even the score with the prosecuting lawyer seems to pay off after six months hard labour when he has robbed his safe. But a carafe of drugged wine on the table is his undoing. Humour, satire. (PB)

Hypocrisy of a writer of a sermon on charity in mistreating a beggar at his door. (PB)

A lone prospector arrives in an Australian range of hills and determines to stay in a deserted hut even though it was said to be haunted by the ghost of an earlier prospector murdered there, the shape of his body burnt into the rock. A half-witted malevolent girl, her surly grandfather, two troopers, a cave hidden in rocks and the a supposedly guilty man is proven innocent by his own efforts. True mateship and attempted family murder included. Cowardly death on the scaffold; a lunatic asylum and happiness in England are the results. (PB)

Humorous. Scottish professor's lesson to his class on observation - finger put into gallipot is not the finger tasted. (PB)

Marriage proposal. A young man's promises to his desired bride are recorded on phonograph before he is accepted: not to expect housework done; not to go out to clubs etc; to buy whatever she needs; and to leave 'obey' out of wedding vows. Humour. (PB)