AustLit

Anecdote of Mme de Montgolfier who forgot her name and address shortly before she died in Paris, but her age - 111 - identified her. Brief. (PB)

An old lawyer's advice to a young man on business success: choose your profession, qualify for it and work hard. Ask no advice nor assistance. (PB)

English tale of murder and romance. A cashier at a London merchant firm is murdered and the head clerk suspected and arrested. An advertisement to his fiancee with whom he had quarrelled implicates him - But it is only through her testimony and the discovery of the true advertiser that justice is done. (PB)

Cross-cultural romance. Tale of love between a white hunter and the beautiful daughter of a chief of the Delawares in the USA. Her father refuses to allow them to marry and burns the hunter at the stake - but his daughter jumps to her death from the Calicoon falls. It marks the beginning of the end for the Delawares. Slight; retains a flavour of Indian/mythic language. (PB)

A Quaker in Nottingham ends with an abuse of the poor-rates by inviting the workhouse inhabitants to consume the committee dinner. Anecdote of William Fox. (PB)

A thief returns to the site where he hid the proceeds of a bank robbery years before. He has been long awaited by the detective of the case who is obsessed with claiming the reward for discovery of the gold for his little daughter Nellie, and has a small observatory and telescope to watch the site. Drugged spirits and the little girl's murder follow, and the thief's own drowning. (PB)

Light romance set around a country house and river. A poet is jilted by the beauty he loves when richer men appear. Several years later, his reputation made, he meets again the younger tom-boy sister who has long loved him ... (PB)

An account of summary justice administered to two murderers wrongly acquitted through bribery. Detailed account of the process but not of the hanging itself; representing the act as just. (PB)

Reflection caused by a newspaper notice of a tramp killed by a train. Includes father-son relationship. (PB)

A baby born to a poor family with many children already dies at 2 years old - but its mission of making the house gentler and more spiritual is accomplished. Sentimental. (PB)

Tale of male friendship surviving female perfidy. The Italian mountains witness a reunion between two friends of youth, an English traveller and the other a scholar and hermit who had lived in the area for ten years. Slowly they unfold the story of their separation by a beautiful woman they both loved and who was false to them both. An action to protect his friend from a murder charge had prompted the hermit to flee England, and a calumny implicating him in the murder prevented his friend from following and forgiving him for many years. Condensed atmosphere. (PB)

The Lord Chancellor of Ireland narrowly avoids committal to a lunatic asylum. Anecdotal. [Dramatically realised dialogue, as these recorded anecdotes are.] (PB)

On the financial value of a wife's contribution to a marriage and her right of access to her husband's wages. (PB)

A rich speculator's strange literal instruction to the artist commissioned to paint a picture of Daniel in the den ... Humour. (PB)