AustLit

An attempt to convert a policeman results in the mistaken arrest of a deacon. (PB)

Sentimental moral tale of a woman who enters a gambling den to save her fiancee from destruction and dishonour. Chief tempter is half Italian, half Spanish. (PB)

A British major saves an Indian boy from being thrashed by a soldier in Northern India and is amply repaid by the boy's loyalty and sagacity during the sepoy mutiny of 1857. British Indian military tale. (PB)

On the thousand virtues hidden beneath the public crimes, etc. (PB)

US murder mystery of 1870s. A beautiful young girl's unexplained death at a holiday house is eventually traced to a runaway ape. Tension well sustained, conclusion a little disappointing. (PB)

A ticking clock in a US hospital calls a dying serjeant's last roll-call. (PB)

Witty paradoxical aphorisms describe the printer's job. Humour. (PB)

A stranger's mysterious death by poison is proven to be the work of his host for the night through a housekeeper's evidence and the prosecuting lawyer's quick mind and subtle questioning. (PB)

Humorous romance of a bridegroom's resentment of the fuss surrounding his wedding; the misadventure that left him wounded and locked in the vestry for three days; and his eventual reconciliation with his bride. Pleasantly told. (PB)

A New York compositor's daughter about to claim her inheritance in St Louis according to the conditions imposed by her eccentric aunt, is robbed of her ruby ring by a pickpocket on the train. The detective narrator finds the ring by coincidence during another train journey over a year later. Well-written if slight in substance. (PB)

A tale of misadventure. A clergyman on his way to take up the living at Rorleigh near Birmingham frightens the girl sharing his railway compartment and she falls to her death from the carriage. He covers up the accident but confesses shortly before he dies from overwork. Well written, tension well maintained. (PB)

Anecdote of the English clergyman's extreme sense of humour. (PB)

Historic tale of Edward Osborne's rescue of his master's daughter from the Thames, his later marriage to her and his fame. Sir Walter Raleigh appears briefly. Slight. (PB)

A girl apparently rejected by the man she loves determines to have her revenge. She teaches him to hope again after his invalid wife dies, only to marry another man as soon as the first love proposes. But pride had frozen her heart ... Competently written, recipe plot. (PB)

Exemplary anecdote of a poor German family made happy by the children's obedience. Weak. (PB)

Australian children's story. A little girl's pity for the spirit of a dead tree is repaid as the spirit shows her scenes from its life: kangaroos, an Aboriginal corroboree, a digger's death, settlement, and the growth of a city. Appealing. (PB)

A grocer's daughter returns from boarding school full of high-flown language and he and his wife decide she will not return but help run the house. Humour. (PB)

An heiress is wooed by a reluctant eldest son to win her wealth to his poor but noble family. Much of the duty falls on to his younger brother, and thrown together they fall in love. He leaves with his men to fight and die in the Crimean War, and in time she marries his brother "and paid off the mortgage upon Redhall." Well written with nice ironic edge; light. (PB)

In the Australian bush a minister finds and adopts a lost motherless girl of 16. He educates her in the city to be a teacher and she returns as governess to his neighbour's children. On her return she discovers not only her love for him but her father, a weak thief whom the minister has redeemed ... Warmly sentimental. Child-like girl-love for guardian. NB Her name is Gift - her mother's gift to her father, and a gift to the minister. Freud/Levi-Strauss, etc. (PB)

Grandmotherly advice to delay before sending an angry letter saves a girl from losing a friendship through gossip. Light moral sketch. (PB)