AustLit

A US wagon-bourne emigrant and his wife are momentarily fooled by a mirage of a lake - and she dies of disillusion. Frontier pathos. (PB)

Romance of the British army in India. A horse race decides the issue of who pretty Leila Marsden is to marry: the rich elderly officer favoured by her sister or penniless sub-lieutenant Charles Willoughby. Light. (PB)

English tale of an old man's murder near Manchester solved ten years later and avenged through the courts. The victims's nephew and a helpful landlord at the local inn figure prominently. Slight. (PB)

A quick-thinking London clerk avoids his employer's ire with a flower and a fictional lady admirer. Slight. (PB)

Set in the English Midlands, a beautiful young actress wins the love of the famous husband she has separated from years before, jealous of his acting. The narrator befriends her. Includes scenes where they play Romeo and Juliet together, he still unaware of her identity. Light; rough warmth. (PB)

Quiet study of a loving mother's ruthless supplantation in her own home by her son's wife, eventually killing her with a broken heart. Well-paced, quiet inexorable tone. Interesting. (PB)

Set near Paris in 1814, a coatman and his daughter help save a wounded French officer, and he marries the girl from gratitude. Brief and basic. (PB)

Domestic misunderstanding and jealousy created by a wife's secret separate a couple for ten years. Too late the husband discovers the secret was of his wife's mother's fall from respectability and her death ... Slight; unlikely plot poorly realised. (PB)

Domestic misunderstanding is soon settled when a wife forsakes jealousy and decides to join her husband in flirtng at parties. Her success soon teaches him to honour his wife ... Slight. (PB)

Understated English ghost tale narrated by sensible Florence who is given the first night alone in a restored haunted room. She prevails upon her sister to sleep with her, and awoken by ghostly footsteps is visited not by a spirit but a mad and murderous housekeeper. Light, amusing. (PB)

The characters and sights at the departure of a large ocean steamer. Lively, slight. (PB)

Romance and brotherly honour in the Franco-Prussian war. A Jesuit novice carries out his dead brother's dying request from the battlefront and seeks and marries the innocent girl he had seduced. Then 'George the Nun' seeks his own death in the war ... Slight; ironic twists. (PB)

Departing from Liverpool, a gentleman's stormy, foggy and seasick week at sea, told in form of diary. Slight. (PB)

A shy young man is skillfully drawn to propose to an artful young lady. Humour. (PB)

In rural Victoria, Bella Woodruff ignores her mother's and her aunt's pleading and attends a ball to dance one last time with her seducer and betrayer Brian Coyn who is to marry another. He does not return alive from the ball, and soon after Bella marries his partner. One year later harsh justice is done to the murderer ... (PB)

A yacht captain's fruitless attempts to educate ladies in the peculiarities of ships. (PB)