AustLit

Club tale of an ardent cyclist hit by accident by another cyclist while walking. He threw the latter into the street and jumped on the bike - only to discover it was his own son and his own ruined bike. (PB)

An Englishwoman's recollections of her meetings as a child with a Spanish Infanta and her dubious American husband at a mineral springs health spa in Portugal. Years later she meets the Infanta again - now a poverty-stricken widow in Spain after the death of her husband in a French prison. Her selflessness and beautiful nature still shine. Atmospheric, indolent Spanish sensuality together with English rationality and affection. The mineral springs are well described. (PB)

A marquis' attempts to impress his guests with an echo - but his servant gives away their ruse. (PB)

A professional photographer witnesses a stranger save his son from a street accident. Some time later he recognises the stranger in a photo taken by a butler-cum-photographer of the would-be-thief who murdered him. He destroys the plate but offers the man no further help when he appears one day. (PB)

An unfaithful husband rediscovers his love for his wife and his honour on her deathbed as she forgives him. His mistress is singing and flirting in a nearby hotel - and he feels jealousy even as his wife is dying. (PB)

A Melbourne couple, happily married for six years, have their contentment disturbed by the wife's mother's proposal to come and stay several months while her husband speculates on silver mining in Adelaide. The couple have their first quarrel and the husband leaves for Europe, writing daily. The wife soon learns to dislike her mother and is relieved when her mother has to join her husband in Adelaide. Then her own husband appears - he has been working in Melbourne all the time saving his holidays to take his family to New Zealand ... Happiness is restored through the mother's absence. (PB)

Tale of love, murder, revenge and madness. The belle of Palmerston falls in love with a poor farmer's son and he goes to the diggings on the Cardona to earn enough to marry her despite parental opposition. He strikes it rich but is murdered on his return. Her grief turns to vengeance and she takes a position as barmaid on the diggings where she finally discovers and shoots the murderer. She goes mad and is committed to the Dunedin asylum. The narrator was a visitor to the asylum and told this story by her doctor. (PB)

Recollections of a country cottage and a mother robin's sharp peck to a fledgling to persuade it to fly out of reach of a cat. (PB)

Account of a game at Orange where the umpire gave the wrong Englishman out - confessing later to Read that he did it because Arthur Shrewbury, the victim, was playing in a very cautious style and they preferred Read's big hitting. He was 'man of the match' and a gold locket thereby. Colonial style.

Satirical tale of an heiress, orphaned daughter of a jockey father who had brought her up to be sporty, and full of manly horsiness on the outside though still refined and pure on the inside. She smokes, bets on horses, wears loud clothes, lives alone and rescues male visitors - though never causes scandal. A retired army officer and apparent gentleman is her favoured suitor until a radical Welsh MP begins to court her. She feigns indifference outwardly until he reveals the major's plans to cheat her over a racing bet, proposes after revealing himself the unwilling owner of the horse in question which he allowed to race so she might win. He loses his non-conformist anti-betting Welsh seat but gains another in England "not hampered by any fostering fads" and his sporty wife is popular. (PB)

Southern tale of honour between rival suitors for a widow's hand. The duel is carried out with a prussic acid pellet and death is horrific. Both lose the widow - she refuses to marry the survivor. (PB)

Humorously melodramatic parting of two lovers for two and a half hours. (PB)

Well-written Anglo-American romance. Beautiful cold Florida-born Gabrielle Ryan wagers with her hard scornful fiancee Robert Vaughan to win the true heart of London QC Oliver Adonais for a pair of gloves. In the process she wins his heart and loses her own. Her pride and determination to win ruins both their lives and his rising career. Engaging depiction of awakening love between them. Brief references to the 'oddness' of American women. (PB)

Adventure on an Australian sheep station when, after a corroboree, blacks attack the outstation huts where the overseer, his dog Bayard (the narrator), two shepherds and the wife of one of them are sleeping. The men, assisted by the brave woman, fend off the attack with guns and Bayard is sent to the station for help. They arrive just in time to save the whites from death by violence and fire - killing the blacks and driving them off with "the wonderful coolness which white men always show in danger." Tale of bravery and loyalty of Australian-born man and dog - gentlemen of mixed pedigree both. Attitudes to Aborigines one of curiosity and impersonal opposition rather than vengefulness and hate, very patronising. Brief references to decreasing corroborees. (PB)

An East-Melbourne household is disturbed by a newly arrived English orphan niece's fears of a ghost who nightly moves her dressing-case to her aunt's bedroom. Detective Sinclair investigates - visits the steamer at Williamstown that she came out on - and uncovers (with the help of the household's male cook) a murder at sea, imposture by a travelling companion as the niece, and a morphine addicted doctor as a wealthy Englishman in Melbourne. He suicides with an overdose; she is committed to an saylum. (PB)

A couple are parted when he decides to resent her jealousy. His lesson backfires when her parents persuade her to become engaged to a rich man - but flowers and a note on Valentine's Day resumes the relationship. (PB)

A small town newspaper editor's reports of a performance by a travelling theatrical troupe change when the troupe leaves town without paying their bill. (PB)

Tragedy of a white child treasured by an Aboriginal tribe near the Kiewa river and the Mitta Mitta. She was thought to be the daughter of a couple who had died and the local station owner's wife determines to rescue her. The young English jackeroo she enlists to 'rescue' the child during a corroboree is killed in the attempt, as is the child. Information on decline in Aboriginal population is given in passing. (PB)

Epistolary epigrammatic romance - infatuation, marriage, divorce. Succinct humour. (PB)