AustLit

English country romance, begun by misadventure. A meeting in a railway carriage, the consequent misunderstandings result in a vicar who had not thought of marriage and a pretty young flirt becoming engaged. Entertaining. (PB)

An Irish medical student's witty replies to his examiners on prussic acid poisoning. (PB)

Tale of the Indian Mutiny, 1857. The narrator's uncle returns to England years later and tells the story of his assassination of a traitorous fakeer working as a double-agent. Contains some questioning of the bloodshed of a soldier's lfie. Based on fact. Competently written. (PB)

Flora Easton, a wealthy banker's daughter, is courted by Lord Eaglehurst, reportedly for her money. She is already engaged to her cousin, and so refuses the offer of marriage Eaglehurst makes despite loving him. Her father's suicide and financial ruin reveal the true state of love and loyalty, and all is settled in Sussex on St Valentines Day. Pleasant, slight. (PB)

'Honest' citizens' true natures are revealed by a practical joke played in Melbourne's Collins Street: a group of young men stuff a wallet with paper and leave it on the pavement to observe what happens. (PB)

English village murder story. Coolly elegant tale of a young curate's delicately selfish approach to his duties and to his love for Christine Eliot. His detached epicurean approach to life leads him to alter his uncle, the vicar's, will, and then to plot and execute his murder. He feels obliged to clear a falsely accused poacher of the crime and sends the man to Australia. Ultimately, he evades the punishment of the law himself, but his conscience changes his manner and he loses Christine's love and finally takes his own life. Well-written. (PB)

A swain's over-eager and unthinking protestation of love loses his lady's approval. Humour. (PB)

English romance with Australian connections. An Englishman returns home after making a fortune as a squatter in Australia, and doubling it by marrying an elderly colonial widow who drowns when their ship goes down on the way home. He marries again within a year but makes his young and pretty wife unhappy with continual reference to his former wife - until his brother-in-law arranges for him to receive a telegram from that supposedly deceased party ... Light; humorous references to the returned squatter's unpoetic nature. (PB)

Story of the early American frontier, a saw-miller's confrontation with a rattle-snake lying in bed between him, his wife and baby, and the dog's sacrifice which saved them. Well-told, first-person narrative. (PB)

A husband discovers his instructions on General Wolseley's disposition of troops is following a suit pattern not a war map. (PB)

A man explains a silk display to his credulous companion - and insults her education covertly. Humour(!). (PB)

A husband suspects his wife of an affair with the local doctor and returns unexpectedly from a business trip (actually to a race meeting and bachelor evening) to find the lights on very late. In attempting to steal in he in fact breaks into the doctor's house and discovers that his wife's visitor is her mother. Slight. (PB)

A mansion in St Kilda is the scene for a late middle-aged gentleman's suspicions of his young wife as adultress and poisoner to drive him to madness. First he alters his will, then murders her and her servant Catherine (his forner mistress) before hanging himself. The original detective in this case is suspected of the crime and Mark Sinclair is called in to clear his name. (PB)

Account of a clever confidence trick. A Frenchman arrests an absconding English cashier at Calais, they come to an understanding apparently agreed to by the company to allow the cashier to return part of the money in francs and to return the rest. Only after remitting the bills to London does the Frenchman learn it is a hoax to defraud him of the 60,000 francs. Well crafted. (PB)

Obituary for a dead brother member: his Christianity shown not by church attendance but by dying free of debts and his family law-abiding. (PB)

A mother's death explained to her children as a long journey to a far distant beautiful country etc. Christian sentiment, from USA. (PB)