AustLit

A railway accident in England throws the narrator into a state of suspended animation which those around him take for dead. He is visited after he is laid out by a defaulting cousin and his fiancee. A hotel fire coincides with his awakening ... Competently realised tale. (PB)

Tale of male friendship, a practical joke with a counterfeit note, and its consequences. A carefree office clerk plays a practical joke on a friend in very straightended circumstances, sending him a counterfeit note which costs him his job. When he realises the impact on his friend, his dependent mother and siblings, he does all he can to repair the loss. Slight; duty and an open heart. (PB)

Set in the west of England one snowy Christmas time in the days of stage coaches. A visitor to a country house has a vision of a beautiful girl's murder. Later that night, after meeting the house party, he saves the girl from his vision - the youngest daughter of the house - from robbery and murder by her fiancee, a house-breaker disguised as an Italian nobleman. Conventional narrative with a touch of the supernatural. (PB)

Romance set in rural England. A visitor to a pretty village wins the love of the young woman living next to his lodging house whom he paints. Only then he reveals that he is the cousin from India she has not seen for ten years but who has been left an inheritance jointly with her on the condition that they marry each other. Pleasant. (PB)

English romance of lovers separated by a miscarried letter in their early youth - but brought together by a country house party and a picnic under an old elm tree in which the letter is discovered. Pleasant. (PB)

A refugee from Cromwell's forces returns to his childhood home where he is clothed, fed, entertained and advised through the services of the Silver Fairy, an old family protectress. At last when a pardon and the deeds to his castle are returned the person acting in the guise of the Fairy, his beloved cousin Aylene, reveals herself, and a wedding follows. Charmingly slight. (PB)

A newly married couple have their first disagreement - over the hanging of a watercolour. Domestic. (PB)

Humorous description of the agonising event.

Account of an excursion along a Southern US bayou and the terrible death of a negro attempting to leave the swamp on a raft which is attacked by alligators. Powerful scene.

Two April First jokes precipitate two romances. A couple separated by gossip and pride for 20 years are reconciled by a shared railway carriage and a walk home in a storm. Their respective nephew and niece also find attraction in each other's company. Light cheery tale, probably US. (PB)

A reporter in a telegraph office is shown various styles in which proud father's announce the news. (PB)

Derringer wins a bet that his wife will not send anything to him by messenger - but the test is rigged. (PB)

When a young woman's ex-lover refuses to help her escape her elderly miser husband in his wagon she prophesises that there will be blood of her hands. But she is the one murdered and her ghost, her ex-lover's dream, and a simple farm hand's suspicion point to her husband - who is himself found dead of fright. (PB)

Humorous social satire on the consternation wrought in a noble British family when their son becomes engaged to the vulgar Miss Maud Jobson. The Duchess of Skye only narrowly avoids having to present the three Misses Jobson and their mother at court in order to buy them off ... Light. (PB)

English romance of a soldier's love tested and found wanting. Steadfast, beautiful and inwardly passionate Nora King asks a suitor of a fortnight to wait six months - the duration of his posting in Malta - before she will decide to marry him. He falls in love with a pretty West Indian heiress in the meantime and Nora sets him free - though he is the one love of her life. Quietly pleasant. (PB)

A father reprimands his wife for not fully answering their child's questions - then does the same thing. (PB)