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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'This anthology collects the best examples of Australian gothic short stories from colonial times. Demonic bird cries, grisly corpses, ghostly women and psychotic station-owners populate a colonial landscape which is the stuff of nightmares.
'In stories by Marcus Clarke, Mary Fortune and Henry Lawson, the colonial homestead is wracked by haunted images of murder and revenge. Settlers are disoriented and traumatised as they stumble into forbidden places and explorers disappear, only to return as ghostly figures with terrible tales to tell. These compelling stories are the dark underside to the usual story of colonial progress, promise and nation-building, and reveal just how vivid the gothic imagination is at the heart of Australian fiction.' (Publication summary)
Contents
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Fisher's Ghost
The Ghost upon the Rail,
single work
short story
crime
The tale of Fisher's Ghost's originally from John Lang's Botany Bay, or, True Stories of the Early Days of Australia . Penrith, NSW, was the scene of Edward Smith's murder of his neighbouring farmer John Fisher, both of them ex-convicts. Smith's plan is foiled by suspicions aroused by Fisher's apparition, the skills of a black tracker, and the sagacious magistrate, Mr Cox. Smith is hanged. (PB)
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Mystery and Murder,
single work
short story
crime
A ghostly murder tale. (PB)
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The Mystery of Major Molineux,
single work
novella
mystery
horror
'The Mystery of Major Molineux is a strange and weird production, evidently founded on a fact connected with the early history of Tasmania. As a psychological study it approaches in subtlety to some of the most successful efforts of the author of Adam Bede; while for intensity of sustained interest and soul-thrilling excitement it is only surpassed by Edgar Allen Poe in The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
'That the story is based upon fact does not detract from its interest, but rather lends an air of vraisemblance to a story which would otherwise be too appalling. It is an introspective study, a psychological romance, a social drama - worthy of the author of His Natural Life.'
[Source: Burra Record 22 June 1881, p.2]
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Monsieur Caloche,
single work
short story
satire
A Frenchman seeks work and ends up at a cattle station, where he has trouble settling into his new role.
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A Haunt of the Jinkarras : A Fearsome Story of Central Australia,
single work
short story
adventure
science fiction
'A Haunt of Jinkarras deals with the discovery of a primordial race that dwells entirely underground.'
Source: L.W. Currey, Inc. https://www.lwcurrey.com/pages/books/167311/ernest-favenc/the-last-of-six-tales-of-the-austral-tropics
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Doomed,
single work
short story
Jim Turner receives news of the death of his friend, the third of a group of five who were involved in the murder of an Aboriginal woman and her baby many years before. Believing that she cursed them to all die violent deaths, Jim feels his own is inevitable. While travelling with his wife and child and the fifth member of the original party, a violent incident leads to him being blinded and to the death of his remaining friend. Turner suffers for years before finally dying, all the while claiming that his final sight before being blinded was of an Aboriginal woman and her child staring at him.
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The Bunyip,
single work
short story
A story about a group of men camping near a creek who begin telling ghost stories and get onto the topic of the bunyip - an uncanny creature said to live in lagoons and possess a supernatural influence over its victims. At hearing a strange cry from the bush, they become convinced it's the bunyip and set off to discover it. Instead they find the body of a young girl from a nearby town with a snake twined round her (supposedly it is this which killed her). However, the young girl has been dead for some hours and they don't believe she died from a snake bite, leading them to question whether the cry was the bunyip after all.
-
The Hut by the Tanks
Johnnie Holme,
single work
short story
The narrator of this story is surprised to discover that Jonnie Holmes, an intelligent bush-bred young man, believes in ghosts. One evening, Jonnie tells him about the two kinds of ghosts he believes in and what happened when he saw one of them.
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The Bush Undertaker,
single work
short story
An old shepherd discovers his mate, Brummy, dead and mummified in the bush. Saddened, he feels compelled to bury him.
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Overseer Franke's Pegging-Out,
single work
short story
historical fiction
A story about a disagreement about authority between a group of workers in the bush.
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The Haunted Station,
single work
short story
horror
mystery
"The narrator of his ghost story, a medical practitioner, becomes a convict after he is wrongly accused of his wife’s murder and transported to the Australian colonies to work in Fremantle building roads. After landing in Australia he seeks his liberty by fleeing into the bush with two fellow convicts. Taking advantage of the capture and shooting of his accomplices, the narrator makes his escape into the wilderness—travelling to a “far off and as yet unnamed portion of Western Australia” (Nisbet 116). Wandering delirious in a hostile environment, Nisbet’s narrator, who is “expectant of something ghoulish and unnatural” to come upon him from “the sepulchral gloom and mystery” (110), suddenly comes upon “a house of two storeys”.
Source: "National Hauntings: The Architecture of Australian Ghost Stories" by David Crouch.
-
With Three Phantoms,
single work
short story
An explorer arrives in Darwin to look for traces of Leichhardt's expedition. His party are found dead months later on the edge of the Simpson Desert. Four years later the explorer is discovered and tells of an improbable story about ghost horsemen.
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The Evil of Yelcomorn Creek
The Mystery of Yelcomorn Creek,
single work
short story
A strange old man tucked away in the bush tells an interesting tale of his opal-mining days in Queensland.Note: With title: 'The Evil of Yelcomorn Creek'
- A Dreamer, single work short story (p. 215-222)
-
Vermisst
The Lost White Woman,
single work
short story
Following a shipwreck of a vessel headed to Sydney, Ellen Hammond is stranded with three men on the Gippsland Coast. In the night, the men are murdered by a group of Aboriginal men but she is spared and brought back to their camp.
The perspective switches to Ellen's husband, Tom Hammond, who insists to the police captain on coming along to search for Ellen, who has been leaving "E.H." scratched into trees. They track the group of Aboriginal people and creep up on their camp before storming it. In the confusion and chaos, a shot is let loose against the orders of the police captain. Ellen is found beside the fire - dying, from the fired shot. In the aftermath, the captain is certain that it was Tom Hammond himself who fired the bullet that ended up killing his wife, but they decide to keep it quiet, believing that Ellen was better off dead after what she had experienced.
Note: With title: The Lost White Woman. -
An Australian Rip Van Winkle,
single work
short story
An uncanny story wherein strange inexplicable events befall a stockman at an isolated location in the bush.
-
The Curse,
single work
short story
A menacing weed known as "the curse" begins to take over the hut of the strange and isolated Alf.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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The Field : Reviews
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: SF Commentary : The Independent Magazine About Science Fiction , June no. 81 2011; (p. 61)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
Terror Australis Incognita? : An Introduction to Fear in Australian Literature and Film
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 23 no. 1 2009; (p. 5-9) 'Since feelings are one of the prevalent subject matters of literature, it is no wonder that fear has affected and infected many Australian literary texts, all the more after the pervasive sense of danger and insecurity generated in a post 9/11 anxiety-provoking context.' -
Australian Gothic
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 21 no. 2 2007; (p. 194-196)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
Goths and Vandals
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 189 2007; (p. 80-81)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract ; The Ghost Writer 2004 single work novel ; Red Spikes 2006 selected work short story -
Who the Hell Are We
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 6 - 7 October 2007; (p. 18-19)
-
The Doom and Gloom of True-Blue Goth Lost in Landscape
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4-5 August 2007; (p. 10-11)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
The Horror Lurking in Our Wide, Brown Land
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 4 August 2007; (p. 22)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
Pick of the Week
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 18-19 August 2007; (p. 34)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
Goths and Vandals
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 189 2007; (p. 80-81)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract ; The Ghost Writer 2004 single work novel ; Red Spikes 2006 selected work short story -
Australian Gothic
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 21 no. 2 2007; (p. 194-196)
— Review of The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction 2007 anthology short story extract -
Who the Hell Are We
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 6 - 7 October 2007; (p. 18-19) -
Terror Australis Incognita? : An Introduction to Fear in Australian Literature and Film
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 23 no. 1 2009; (p. 5-9) 'Since feelings are one of the prevalent subject matters of literature, it is no wonder that fear has affected and infected many Australian literary texts, all the more after the pervasive sense of danger and insecurity generated in a post 9/11 anxiety-provoking context.'