AustLit

A man impersonating Colonel James Green from India orders a tea service from a London goldsmith of the same name - and uses an elaborate scheme to defraud the goldsmith of £1500. (PB)

A Bath doctor has his practice saved from ruin and himself from drink by a guilty duchess who fears herself caught for drunkenness too. (PB)

Two ugly Frenchman find a humorous reason for not continuing their duel. (PB)

A British soldier sends his family to a vacant house near Calcutta to escape the cholera , but has to bring them back when a ghostly woman appears. A subsequent night spent there with a fellow officer brings an even more horrific encounter with the woman. Well written. (PB)

A man rescues a lady stabbed on the street and, visiting her during her recovery, falls in love with her. She refuses to marry him for three years but eventually does so. They have a child and happiness until the husband she thought dead appears. She leaves him but eventually he discovers her in a factory - and they are reunited when her first husband dies from becoming entangled in the factory machinery. Plot well worn but factory setting unusual. (PB)

Leola Vansiltart, owner of the rich property Cooinda, disapproves of her father's marriage to a schoolfellow she knows to have been dishonest, and refuses to allow her to live in the station house. A new stockman and an older one recognise each other from Pentridge, one is the dishonest girl's husband and one a rogue who helped her- and becomes her murderer here. Murder, bigamy, theft, a strong secure heroine, ex-convicts, and an older man's infatuation all feature in this tale. (PB)

A rising comic writer in London adventures for an amanuensis to assist in a serious work on Spain; finds a wife; and eventually wins his rich uncle's approval of the match. Light, slightly unfocussed romance. (PB)

A negro advises a policeman he is going to punish another for lying about him - but is beaten himself. Humour. (Phonetic dialogue as all 'negro' sketches are.) (PB)

In 1837 a loyal old British sailor is sentenced to death for killing an officer at Gibraltar in defence of his daughter. His daughter appeals to King William IV on his deathbed and a pardon is granted. True Brits all. (PB)

Jonathan's chivalry is aroused by a beautiful woman who begs his assistance in fleeing cruel relatives. Their horse ride ends abruptly when she draws a knife on him ... and he awakens to find she was a runaway lunatic. plot used before but nice undernote of irony. (PB)

Harry MacDonald is beset by Mexican bandits to extort a ransome. He escapes, killing the bandit chief on the way. Brief, action tale. (PB)

On the anomaly of the term, 'Debts of Honour', and an honest tradesman who received payment from Charles Fox by burning his bill. (PB)

A clergyman mistakes a scarecrow for the stern Miss Rexford whose permission he is seeking to hold an annual Sunday school picnic on her beautiful estate. His near-sightedness amuses her and a friendship grows that by the next picnic has become a marriage. Pleasant, lightly humorous autumnal romance. (PB)

A wife and husband arrive separately at their friends' house, and she locks him in the house and calls the police - mistaking him for a burglar. Slight. (PB)

Anecdote of a young surgeon who refuses to be reproved by Cardinal du Bois for his appearance - set in France during the reign of Louis XV. (PB)