AustLit

Historical romance in Spain. Chivalric romance of the meeting of the noble and semi-paralysed soldier, the Count of Thelses, and his young and beautiful wife Marie Kirkpatrick in Malaya. She was later a noblewoman of the Spanish court and one of her daughters married Napoleon III. Pleasant. (PB)

Male friendship and a fight against alcoholism on the Victorian goldfields in 1853 - rewarded with romance in England. A gentleman's fists win him respect despite his refusal to drink in a diggings' inn. He befriends a young Englishman who spends his hours off-duty in drinking, finally rescuing him from a hotel fire at the cost of his own eyesight. The younger man gives up drinking and takes his saviour home to England to reunite him with the woman he has discovered he loves - the youth's own sister. Competent; not outstanding. (PB)

London swindle circa. 1890. A 'sharp' club member is taken in by a dealer in false stones who offers him a 'bargains' purchase as thanks for returning his pocket-book at the Epsom Derby. (PB)

Tragedy and romance of beautiful Alice Dunn. A runaway marriage against her parents' wishes sentences Alice to marriage to a drunkard who cripples their child and shoots himself. Failing in her struggle to support them Alice determines to return home - but her parents are dead. A former suitor comes to the rescue ... Sentimental. (PB)

A 'thoughtful' young lady removes her hat at the theatre and earns the thanks of every male there. (Exemplary? Propaganda?) (PB)

Tale of the destruction of the last of Napooleon's 16th Chasseurs by wolves during the French retreat from Moscow, circa 1812. Colourful history. (PB)

Marital estrangement follows when the existence of a step-son from her husband's unknown first marriage is revealed and he is brought home to live. The wife's discovery of a servant's brutal mistreatment of the boy and his death from pleurisy restore love to him and to the marriage. Some promise; also sentimental. (PB)

A father's attempt to do so - love and fruststration mixed. (PB)

A Russian Nihilist imprisoned in Siberia tells of the assassination attempt near St Petersburg for which he was imprisoned, and his true punishment - the knowledge that he killed his betrothed in the blast. Slight. (PB)

Dramatised account of King Charles XI of Sweden and the vision he experienced after his wife's death prophesying the bloody murder of a descendant ... Competent. (PB)

Pleasant romance. The narrator's friendly visit to his college chum's marital abode elicits the story of a strange drawing room decoration - an umbrella. Through storms and a lodging house acquaintance it twice introduced the lovers to each other. (PB)

Tale of larrikins and the determination of oneof them, 'Choker', to leave the city and reform. he promises to send for his mate 'Bumper' as soon as he can. 'Choker's mother proves to be bigamously married to a respected JP and a trial for stolen jewelley reveals her first husband to be a drunken criminal, the jewels given away by her to support him, and Choker to be her son. Friendship among boys. (PB)

On the 'queer, indefinable feeling' occasioned by looking at photos of oneself as a baby, memories of mother etc. (PB)

Study of a second-rate French writer who commits a double murder and a robbery, implicating another man who is found guilty of the crime. Frustrated by the lack of recognition for the genius of his crime he publishes a 'fictional' confession under his true name, but while the story is praised he is not. When he confesses to the police he is locked up as a madman ... stark; coldness well conveyed. (PB)

True love proved by the loss of an inheritance. A poor music teacher discovers the worth of hard-working John Grant whose love remains after she hears another has gained the inheritance she had hoped for. At the same time the handsome drawing master drops her companionship. Slight. (PB)

A child's search for her mother, only recently dead. Pathos. (PB)