AustLit

Narrative of the life of Joan of Arc; dramatised. (PB)

Temperance tale set in the American pioneering West. A husband's inability to stop drinking after marriage is cured not by his wife's patience but when she determines to leave him and is almost killed by wolves as she skates up the river towards her parents. (PB)

Set on the Bendigo diggings in the 1850s, an account of the narrator's digging mate. Born in the USA by the Mississippi River he had become a sailor but when his sweetheart died during one of his voyages he lost all hope in the world, eventually drifting in the Victorian diggings. A "hatter" (lone miner) until the narrator's arrival, he indulged in regular drinking sprees and despite attempts to reform, dies after falling into a deserted mineshaft one night. Melancholy and a little slow. (PB)

A 45 year-old gentleman and ex-officer returns from India to England, and at country house amateur theatricals meets and falls in love with his unknown leading lady - the younger sister of the woman who had soured his heart by refusing his proposal years before when he was poor. His identity is revealed as the play unfolds. Slight. (PB)

A lynching with its outbreak of quiet deadly cruelty - and the 'normal' day after. (PB)

Oddly disjointed mystery/romance of the Victorian bush. James Grover mill-owner, forbids his daughter Mary to see Robert Cook the man she loves, while he is secretly possessed by his love for Teresa, Robert's sister - who herself is engaged to a mysteriously fatherless man known only as George. George turns out to be James Grover's son by his first wife; Teresa a woman once nearly hung for murder and involved with Robert in a local secret society (probably Irish). Insanity, two drownings, and refuge in the USA for Robert and Mary end the tale. (PB)

A man visits a seaside resort to vindicate his friend's honour by jilting the woman who had jilted him. But love blossoms for them both. Light. (PB)

Vaguely uneventful tale overblown with two detectives, an evil stepfather who helped the house-keeper poison his second wife; an unhappy daughter and her gallant step-brother; and a kindly blackmailer ... Set near Hobson's Bay. (PB)

An Englishman kills a young German in a duel the latter forced upon him for a trivial insult. (PB)

Written by 'a lady writer in one of our exchanges', reveals that Adam assisted Eve in all things so there no need of a maid. (PB)