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Quartet in Death Minor single work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1988... 1988 Quartet in Death Minor
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: Quartet in D Minor
Notes:
Variant title appears in Westerly
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Westerly vol. 33 no. 1 March 1988 Z659710 1988 periodical issue 1988 pg. 59-64
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon My Lady Tongue and Other Tales Lucy Sussex , Port Melbourne : Heinemann , 1990 Z399702 1990 selected work short story science fiction Port Melbourne : Heinemann , 1990 pg. 39-52
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories Ken Gelder (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1994 Z356827 1994 anthology short story crime young adult 'Did Australian ghosts suffer from a cultural cringe? Dr Ken Gelder indicates in the introduction to another fascinating OUP anthology that early ghost stories were essentially a "transported genre" that looked back to England as their source. Thus John Lang's well-known story "The Ghost upon the Rail" is based upon a case of murder for post-convict wealth. Gelder argues that Australian ghost stories possess their own ironical flavour, but the gothic tradition has to be resolved in outback locations or deserted mining towns, as in David Rowbotham's "A Schoolie and the Ghost".'

    'Gelder relies heavily on Victorian and Edwardian writers, such as Marcus Clarke, Barbara Baynton and Hume Nisbet, as if unsure as to the nature of contemporary ghosts. It is interesting to see that Australia's science fiction writers, such as Lucy Sussex and Terry Dowling, provide the link between the past and the present. Dowling's "The Daeman Street Ghost-Trap" effectively uses traditional settings to link ghosts with a current horror, namely cancer. Several bunyip stories remind us of a particular Antipodean creature to stand against the assorted European manifestations.'

    (Colin Steele, SF Commentary No 77, p.55).


    Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1994
    pg. 260-266
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Australian 5 January 1995 Z659744 1995 newspaper issue 1995 pg. 11
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