AustLit

A Brighton lodging-house shelters a nobleman's steward wanted for forgery until he is tracked down by a detective. The daughter of the landlady loves him and warns him - and he is found to be innocent. (PB)

Quick-thinking by a doctor in an army lunatic asylum locks an escaped inmate in a bathroom. (PB)

Domestic tale of a rich aunt whose picture has to be place in her favourite nephew's house to secure his inheritance. She loses all her money in mining speculations but true love is hers when she comes to live with her nephew and his wife. After her death £2000 is found in the picture frame ... (PB)

US railway engineer's tale of an express sleeper saved from a washed out bridge by the reflection of a moth in the headlight onto the fog. (PB)

Domestic. A wedding anniversary prompts a quarrel over youthful suitors. (PB)

Amateur detective tale of Englishmen in Nice. A theft of diamonds leads the narrator and Lord Frederick to a pet's grave - but fortunately a real detective tracks down the real thief. (PB)

Reminiscences of a US sea captain on his first sailing trip to Australia - being lost overboard; adrift for days; attacked by albatrosses and rescued by Tierra del Fuegans. Agog with incidents. (PB)

Domestic tale of the jealousy brought into a childless contented marriage by the arrival of a bright 18 year-old niece - and the 'spoiled' wife's clever response. Pretty tight tale of 'man's subjugation'. (PB)

Adventures of a loyal dog. An English Punch and Judy showman tells of the dog he rescued from drowning, and the animal's intelligence and loyalty in saving him from death and helping recover his stolen show goods ... Animal tale. (PB)

Romance of youth does not survive absence and the entry into middle years. A proposal to the wrong lady is too late for either the aunt or the niece. Irony. (PB)

Horse-racing tale. The expenditure of £400 to purchase a winning jumper is wasted when the rider is waylaid, made drunk and sentenced to gaol by the unwilting purchaser. The plot of competing rich titled men is sharply counterpointed by country magistrate's court where the poor are punished for any depredations on property but a man who badly beats his servant girl is let off lightly. (PB)

An elder sister's self-sacrifice to educate her orphaned younger sister seems betrayed when she discovers the girl in the arms of her fiancee. The girls marries another, as does the sister - but years later and widowed she is reunited with the now long faithful fiancee. (PB)

Romance indirectly begun by a newspaper advertisement for a husband put in by the friend of an old maid of 29. Her handwriting eventually gains her a job which introduces her to the future husband. (PB)

A Melbourne Jewish second-hand dealer and diamond merchant has a friend arrange for him to flee his creditors and join a boat from a quiet spot up the Victorian coast. An honest fisherman and son and a superstition about a shark which waits for bodies at the spot help pin-point the old man's murderer - who misses the diamonds and is himself eaten by the shark. (PB)

An auctioneer's memory of a cradle and a grieving mother which cured him of humour in his work. Told to a reporter. (PB)