AustLit

On man's methods and woman's adaptation to circumstances especially in writing where a man must have total quiet and order while a woman writes in chaos and confusion. (PB)

Romance adventure set in Victoria. Four girls decide to take a walking tour dressed as boys after attending a Women's Suffrage League meeting. They enjoy camping out for a few days and then decide to put up in a hotel at Rutherglen where four cyclists they met briefly are staying. Mischief prompts them to take a walk with four local girls but trouble in the shape of a father witnesses a kiss the narrator gives to her companion. She narrowly escapes a thrashing when she mistakenly enters the room of one of the cyclists; he mistakes her for a thief. Her escape and a full tilt cycle ride and accident reveal her gender - they become friends on their meeting in town, and romance seems set to follow. Interesting mix: the girls' decision is mocked as silly and inspired by women's movement madness - but an enjoyment of freedom is unmistakable. Kissing of the girl 'daring'? Male triumphant, women happy etc. (PB)

Racing and gambling tale set in England and France. Reminiscence of a Freemason's dream in 1871 which prompted the narrator to back the horse entered in the Lincoln Handicap with the number seen in the dream. He also backed the favourite so collected doubly when both won. Augury and gambling. (PB)

Romantic tragedy behind the composition of two popular songs c.1870s. Set in England and the USA, tale of the comic opera singer Alice Oates and the musician who loved her and gave her the songs which made her popularity. She left him and he wasted his talents in drink. (PB)

The adventures of a fiddle made by the celebrated Amati brothers through Europe in the 1800s. Ended up the property of Paganini. Brief. (PB)

The American reporter's account of learning to ride a two-wheeler bicycle in England. Problems of surfaces, milkmen, etc. (PB)

Romantic tragedy set in England in 1644. Nobles loyal to the Stuart cause are stripped of wealth and servants. Alice Vane nurses and falls in love with a wounded cavalier she had known, and when he is captured and condemned to death by Cromwell she obtains a pardon. A vengeful officer delays the pardon and she joins Hubert as he is fired upon - both dying together. Slight. (PB)

US frontier tale. A party of officers commissioned to cross enemy territory are discovered - slaughtered by their comrades several days later. Male solidarity, courage etc - doesn't include Indians. (PB)

In dramatic form. A man's description of his dentist's resolve in extracting teeth convinces his friend death is better. Humour. (PB)

A wager between the Russian Empress and the French ambassador is settled when he succeeds in smuggling lace into the country inside a mechanical dog. Courtly civility etc. Slight. (PB)

Humorous romance. A suitor's roses elicit a strange response when his beloved rushes crying from the room. He determines at first not to propose thinking that she has a past sorrow but changes his mind when he discovers she was stung by a bee. Wooden. (PB)

War scene. A wounded soldier dies looking at the stars but seeing only the faces of his family and thinking he has reached home. Pathos. (PB)

Russian tale of a group of young artists, writers and doctors, including Dostoieffsky, who are betrayed to the secret police by one of their members. He asks to be treated the same as the others so they may not know his guilt, and later pardon - but when he is led to the field of execution he fears for his life. The pardon, when it comes, is too late as he has died of fright. Competent. (PB)

English society romance set in England and France. A rich idle lord who loves beauty proposes to a beautiful but cold-hearted and unresponsive woman. As he comes to know her better he falls in love with her much less pretty but 'true-hearted, tender, sympathetic' poor cousin, Amy. A fever at St Lazare causes his fiancée and all her family but Amy to desert him - she nurses him through his illness and he marries her. Well-written, light. (PB)

Very brief anecdote of an Irish workers' delegate who asks their employer to pay their fortnight's wages weekly. (PB)

Adventure tale in first person. An Englishman in Burma feels a snake - a khorite fallen from the roof onto his shoulder. He must wait an agonising time for a courageous native servant to kill it with a sword, expecting each moment to be struck by its fangs. (PB)

A young lady determined to marry for position angrily dismisses Lord Bathurst when he proposes but informs her that Lord is his name and not his title. A month's moping with her brother and sister-in-law in town changes her mind. Second proposal is in the kitchen as she washes up. Light. (PB)

Narrative of an artist's model's devotion to her cruel and selfish husband who will not permit her to work for anyone else. She has given up her child and finally her virtue to earn money to feed him in his illness. She dies, he goes mad and his picture represents their final scene. Slight; pathos. (PB)

Domestic. A man meets and old friend on the street and accompanies him home to dinner. Unhappy himself with a hypochondriac wife, he is delighted to see his friend's happy wife and to find out that she was cured from a similar conviction of her imminent death by a very aggravating maid. Covetousness of her mistress' husband as an effective trigger. Slight; smug tone in relation to female illness, etc. (PB)