AustLit

Narrative of a slum visitor. Tale of a poor woman she has seen often, once attempting to take her drunken husband home. She sees her next in the hospital and hears her story of the couple's good life in the country and move to the city where unemployment, alcohol, her work as a laundress and the death of their little girl ruins their lives. The poor wife dies in hospital of fever, grieving for her husband. (PB)

Tale of a young man cut off by his uncle for marrying a poor governess, who faces New Year in a state of siege from his creditors. A clever advertisement put in the Agony columns of the papers by his wife not only scotches the creditors but brings around his uncle too. (PB)

When a wife fails to recognise herself in a photograph taken by her husband, his career with the camera comes to an end. (PB)

Light-hearted society romance. Captain Percy Drummond at last obtains an invitation to a private New Year's Ball which his beloved is to attend. He forgets his dress coat and has to borrow one from his apparent rival. It splits and immobilises him all night, even when he overhears his rival's proposal being accepted. Several months later he discovers that in fact his rival had sought the hand of his beloved's sister ... (PB)

Two ghost tales; one of an English visitor to Ireland whose health is impaired by a ghost vision - and ultimately saved from an elevator crash by it. The other of two London children apparently visited by their mother's ghost before she died. (PB)

A little girls chooses a doll for her French orphan friend - paying half a crown for the best one rather than only two shillings which would have left her enough for a kitten. Mother buys the kitten anyway. Upper middle-class exemplary tale. (PB)

A rich merchant's reflections on New Year's Eve of his material wealth and spiritual poverty. He converts to Christ, changes his life and a year later is happier. Includes child's death and the loss of beauty of his and his wife's youthful love. (PB)

A husband of one month, a commercial traveller, returns drunk after his first week away and descends into his neighbours' house by accident - via the chimney. Drink and divorce, domestic setting. Avowedly not a temperance tale. (PB)

Humour; amateur instructions on the increasingly popular game. (PB)

A swagman obtains a little work and food on a small farm, then walks on in his search for gold, becomes lost, and dies. (PB)

Too much Christmas turkey and pudding prompts a boy's dream of his judgement and execution by a horde of turkeys. (PB)

On the hours of life that belong to and should be observed by mothers. (PB)

An English visitor and his brother investigate an elderly censorious woman. She is the estranged wife of the brother whom she had tried to poison and whose health was broken. They discover that Miss Standish runs a gaming house with the help of a local villainous youth. Further, there are two sisters who are using her identity. Suicide and a prison term follow the exposure of the women, and the youths also meet their different fates. (PB/JG)

Domestic lesson. Mr and Mrs Stiffle blame each other for missing a train, so the next week each gets ready without assistance from the other. Mr S. loses everything and misses the train which Mrs S. coolly catches. Harmony returns however. (PB)

Humorous tale of a conceited young stock broker of Toorak who imagines his mother satisfied by his news and her trips to Mullers' and the cathedral. He takes up cycling and is fascinated by a mysterious woman who joins him for a ride every night. All confidence in his mother is at an end when he discovers she and not a mysterious beauty is his nocturnal companion. Amusing dig at masculine complacency. (PB)

A hunter in Western USA - the Sierra Nevadas - is surrounded by wolves and eventually killed despite courageous resistance. Pathos and horror. (PB)

Reminiscence. Description of dining, dressing at Windsor Castle. Furnishings, other diners, etiquette etc. Very solemn evening. (PB)

A country Victorian trooper captures the bushranger Gentleman George, whom he encounters disguised as a Melbourne trooper dining at the table of a neighbouring station owner. The country trooper pretends not to know the outlaw. He escapes an attempt to arrest him, a chase follows and bullet wounds injure them both - George killing himself to avoid hanging. (PB)

The health of a doctor's wife is in danger when her daughter is born with a head of golden hair - just like the barmaid where her husband had been spending his evenings for months past. All is restored, mother and child reunited, when the doctor confesses the barmaid is his long lost sister. Interesting for remarks on status of barmaids, threat to marriage, etc. (PB)