AustLit

A rich man notices his servant's contentment but it vanishes when he is given £100. He gives it back and regains contentment. Slight. (PB)

Romance and rivalry in Ireland. A Dublin student persuades his friend to visit his uncle's house in the country. He grows increasingly jealous as he fears the friend is falling in love with his cousin Lucy - and decides to return to Dublin in anger. Trying to prevent his departure, the friend becomes involved in a fight which topples him over the cliff. The student gives himself up as a murderer but a faithful servant's false testimony and his uncle the magistrate's friend appears only slightly injured ... Lucy marries her cousin and the friend becomes friend to them both. Action and humour in slight tale. (PB)

A judge's 'dream' under the influence of Kali and a strange mirror persuade him to free an innocent man accused of murdering a romantic rival. The vision also showed him the true killer, a witness against the innocent man - and sufficient evidence to compell him to confess. Includes comments on capital punishment and the 20 men the judge had condemned to death - and Kali. (PB)

Romantic tragedy set around a NSW country station. Madge, calm pretty and the only daughter on the station becomes engaged to a 'colonial experience' Englishman. He is attracted to a neighbouring visitor and the engagement is broken off at a local ball. He marries the other woman but she dies; he loses his station and his daughter is all to him. Madge is increasingly valued for her nurturing nursing - and finally dies after rescuing her former lover's blight-blinded daughter from a bushfire. Calm woman's self-sacrifice, true mettle etc. (It is the death of her! But all for him.) Light. Some interest in characterisation of the gossiping Mr Bennie. (PB)

Humour. A Sunday school superintendent's plan to raise money through his pupils backfires. Very brief and slight. (PB)

English racing tragedy. A promising jockey is brain damaged in a race soon after winning the Cambridgeshire. He returns to sanity sufficiently to win the race for the next two years - having spent the last 6 months in a lunatic asylum, he dies after winning the race for the third and last time. Uncanny; slight. (PB)

A blacksmith saves his grandson from a crowd eager to lynch him for horse-stealing. The old man is prepared to die in his place. Slight. (PB)

English romance. All Halloween and an admission of love for the suitor she had had to send away for drinking and bad habits saves the man from sinking lower and robbing her father. A year later he rescues a child from a burning factory and his injuries have burnt away his guilt! Slight. (PB)

Humour as a husband begs his wife for a kiss of reconciliation in increasingly loud tones. Slight and brief. (PB)

Voyage from Melbourne to Tasmania in 1891 is humorously described. Curiosities of passengers and crew; headgear; seasickness; New Year's Eve and resolutions; enthusiastic greeting at Launceston wharf for the Government of South Australia. Amusing if not outstanding. (PB)

English justice and murder. A man accused of murder is acquitted through the foreman's obstinancy - the foreman himself being guilty. Slight. (PB)

A teacher's questions to a pupil are answered literally but not correctly. Humour. (PB)

An Englishman in Switzerland charged double for the chair occupied by his bag during dinner returns a few days later and proceeds to stuff it and himself with food. Humour. Dauntless British etc. (PB)

Sydney romance and social satire. The gracious and beautiful daughter of a wealthy former teamster and bush hotel servant tours Europe, turns down coronets, and falls in love with a poor but handsome and noble sailor from Sydney. They marry much to the disgust of her puffed-up father, Sydney society, and a vulgar old millionaire who wanted her himself. Light. (PB)

English romance of a rich boy and a beggar girl - involving the reversal of their fortunes. A schoolboy is kind to a poor girl he accidentally hits with a stone during a fight. Years later his father's fortune lost and she adopted by a rich merchant they meet. Slowly love grows and is rewarded. Light; sentimental, some warmth. (PB)

US Civil War scene. A battle at a crossroads around a log cabin kills the family within - apart from a baby in its cradle. Pathos. (PB)

A shop wife is deserted by her rebellious husband when a rich colonial leases the house across the road and hires the man as caretaker. A variety of suburban robberies unsolved; a male accomplice disguised as the colonel's mother; a murder for which the caretaker is framed; two constables and a wise old ex-policeman; attempted escape by yacht and a castaway colonel are all components of the plot. Harsh depiction of the wife. (PB)

An independent and determined boy obtains the job and the salary he desires. Cheek. (PB)

A man's desperate attempts to sew on a shirt button, misadventures etc., and his conviction he can do it better than women. Humour - helpless man genre. (PB)

A thirsty and very poor newspaper staff con a canny publican into shouting them a very necessary drink. (PB)