AustLit

A 3 year-old hears the Christmas story from her father and is discovered, asleep, standing in the stable manger later that night. Sentimental piety. (PB)

Romance, elopement, attempted murder and madness - all joined by coincidence. A stay in London for Christmas includes the witness of a murder by a Derbyshire youth. As the years unfold he is entangled in the romance of his friend with the victim, treats her legal husband in a railway accident in France, etc. Intense plot. (PB)

A bachelor's lonely Christmas in a London lodgings while the landlady's relatives celebrate - and his resolution to marry before the next. (PB)

Practical jokes by college friends during a Christmas railway journey backfire when the victim turns out to be the father of the narrator's host for the season - and of his beautiful sister. (PB)

A rescue of English sailors by an American steamer in the Atlantic in 1885, and the sailors' courage and self-sacrifice on both sides. Dramatised account. (PB)

Juvenile. A brother and sister mistake a burglar for Santa Claus. (PB)

Drunkard's account of his fall from respectability in 1887 - New Year's Day - when his wife left him. (PB)

Greetings to the sick, a prisoner, a prostitute, and the bereaved - with exhortations to reform, to be happy etc. Commonsense piety. (PB)

A young child's seaside holidaying in Devonshire causes him to be infatuated with the photo of a pretty young woman - but he feels deceived when his landlady tells him she was not a good woman ... When he meets and falls in love with her, visiting her home in Scotland, he learns the truth about the holiday visit ... but too late to save the romance ruined by his suspicions and a letter ... (PB)

A missed train saves the narrator from a terrible accident. Providence and Sunday travelling. (PB)

A famous actor leaves the stage and his infant son in his grief after his beloved wife's death - but they are reunited 15 years later in California when the boy appears as an actor. (PB)

An English nobleman falls in love with his nurse while recovering from a serious accident in hospital. She disappears as he is about to propose and he only discovers her and her story in a noble Scottish castle 18 months later ... Pleasant tale including concealed identity and family honour. (PB)

A young English doctor issues a death certificate for a Midlands gentleman and learns only 10 years later that he was not dead but unconscious. The certificate was needed so his wife could claim an inheritance. (PB)

A burglar's account of his discovery on Christmas Eve by the owners of a mansion he was robbing, and his forced exit via the chimney ... Includes description of the pleasures of burglary as well as the humiliation of that night. (PB)

Family saga, set in Toorak, Melbourne in the late 1880s after the Crash. Lorna is wooed by rich, middle-aged, unpleasant George Langly - favoured by her mother for his money - and handsome Colin Rooke, friend of her brother Lynn returning from colonial experience in Queensland. Pressure exerted by Langly through his mortgage over their family home is frustrated when Colin's sister identifies him as the husband who deserted her in America - her claims supported by the opera singer he abandoned after marrying her bigamously. Colin's recall of £50,000 in Broken Hill mining shares are the icing on the cake ... Pleasant tale of wealthy lives in post-Boom Melbourne. Full descriptions of balls and gardens. (PB)

A decamping husband is murdered, and suspicion points to his alcoholic and deserted wife. But the evidence of the sinister of an invalid girl points to her landlady and the victim's charwoman - who drugged him and killed him with a tomahawk. Street policeman, a terrier dog, bribery, and 'the conning woman' all figure. (PB)

Christmas Eve punch inspires a curate's tale - but not his intelligibility. Men's gathering. (PB)

Woman's tale of her life as a cook in an Australian city after her young husband's death in a Riverina station flood on Christmas Day. She is reunited with her rich father after a year supporting herself - and a few years later marries again - the nephew of her former employer. Status concerns: women's vs. ladies' work. (PB)