AustLit

Joke set in Omerschans, Holland where a stranger outrageously provokes local curiosity as to his business - and conveys the town's tedium. (PB)

A little girl's obituary to her dead brother, a news boy, to the newsroom staff, results in a short death notice the next day. Sentiment. (PB)

Humorous account of a man's futile attempts to win a bet on the lady's identity. Dated humour. (PB)

A Paris doctor's scurrilous attempt to rid his usual table at a restaurant of a stranger is answered in equally scandalous manner. Humour. (PB)

English romance of nobility marrying a commoner. Julia Power, a railway overseer's daughter, overcomes her prospective sister-in-law's opposition to her marriage with her impoverished but noble brother by saving her from committing suicide under a train. As the train cuts into a previously private peak so this 'common' marriage cuts into family pride ... Adam Bede reference, etc. Lively and pleasant. (PB)

An heiress tests her would-be suitor to discover whether he would marry her unknown for love - or would seek her for ambition. He wavers at first in the country but meeting her again in New York throws his all for love. He is a writer ... Predictable; slight. (PB)

Gentleman's tale from England. A bookish friend's sherry is actually a laudanum mixture which a visiting thief sampled to his sorrow. Humour and camaraderie mixed. (PB)

English tale of romance, jealousy and tragedy. Netta, a young girl who shares a mutual dislike with her step-mother at last escapes to a London season with her rich aunt. There she falls in love and becomes engaged but her suitor proves to have courted her step-mother in his youth. The former lovers stroll together one morning towards a cliff weakened by a storm - and when Netta witnesses them embracing she does not warn them of their danger. Guilt wracks her for the rest of her days. Slight but compelling in parts. (PB)

An amateur magician tries an egg trick at a party and ends up with it all over his shirt - thanks to the neighbour's small boy and a rotten egg. Humour; slight. (PB)

Baby lost and found in Kansas. A woman newly emigrated to Kansas with her husband and child wishes in a moment of despair that she had no baby. The child is stolen by Indians and only after several long years of sorrow is she recovered by chance. Exemplary tale to mothers in same despair. (PB)

US tale of a professor's self-sacrifice in pursuit of a test for a particular poison - and the conviction of his widow for her fourth murder. Lightly bizarre. (PB)

English. Generalised portrait of their 'vapid frivolity' and uselessness to society. (PB)

Nellie Long proves that her suitor loves her when he turns down an heiress to marry her - and then reveals that she is the very heiress his uncle's will instructed him to marry to inherit his fortune. Light; familiar plot. (PB)

Account of the single-handed defence of a mountain pass against the Austrians in 1790 by the brave grenadier captain La Tour d'Auvergne. (PB)

Tale of the London racecourse mafia c. 1849 and the downfall of one rough chief when his rigging of a race was discovered and prevented. Reminiscence. (PB)

Humourous (?) domestic dialogue of a husband attempting to teach his wife euchre. (PB)

English tale of wealth hoarded by an elderly aunt and robbery frustrated by her quick-thinking niece. Lottie Courbold goes on as companion to her rich but miserly aunt in Hampshire after her father's death. Discovering a plot by the housekeeper and her son to rob the old lady of her wealth, she entraps the burglars in her aunt's closet ... Well-written, well-realised plot. (PB)

On the question, 'is marriage a failure' - advocates women be trained first to be a wife and only then to be a mother. Cites Balzac. (PB)

Feeling in western USA mining town reverses when a stranger they thought taciturn and a horse thief is discovered to be a widower with a sick little daughter. Manly frontier sentiment (!) The charms of a child on savage male breasts. (PB)

US prairie fire. Men, horses, buffalo, wolves, antelopes etc., shelter together in a small grove while a prairie fire passes by. Effective. (PB)