AustLit

A tale of the Victorian gold diggings, 1857-62. A woman is shot by her drunken lover but reunited with the English husband she had never loved on her deathbed. He pursues her murderer finding and killing him on a diggings near Bendigo five years later. Narrated by a mate of the wronged husband; includes a reminiscence of the couple's courting days and early married life in an English village. (PB)

An artist wins his rich, ugly sitter's commendation for his portrait only when he beautifies it unreasonably. In doing so he unwittingly and unwillingly ensures his success with similar portrait requests. (PB)

Pathetic tale of an orphaned child seeking the way to heaven and her mother in climbing a church steeple, and finding it when the bell-ringer sounds the bell. (PB)

Tale of trust abused when the narrator's friend borrows her fiancee for a masquerade ball - only to be detected by her exchanging a passionate kiss in the conservatory. All is not lost as another man proves his worth ... (PB)

Set in Scarborough, Yorkshire and the Queensland outback. Lovers parted by a rival's plot are reunited through his rescue and recovery from an Aboriginal spearing. (PB)

Historical narrative of the rise to success of the able Paris brothers through supplying the French army with provisions, and later through banking etc. Set around 1690s - 1720s. (PB)

A begging drunkard tells a kindly man the story of his life as a doctor and digger on the Australian goldfields, and the extra glass that led to the murder of his wife and the theft of the gold they had been saving to return to England. (PB)

A little girl's mischief sends a Valentine to her father's business friend and begins a romance that leads to her sister's marriage. (PB)

An Englishwoman and her son arrive in Australia to join her ex-convict husband innocent of the crime for which he was transported. On the way to his hut near Phillip Island she finds him much changed and through her son's exploring hears from another escaped convict that the man is not her husband but his murderer ... (PB)

An incongruous engagement is begun through a misunderstanding and an old lady's deafness, but happily resolved once the elderly suitor discovers it is indeed his nephew the lady loves. (PB)

Romance between a 40ish guardian and his young ward. Love finally triumphs over their mutual self-renunciation when his illness and temporary blindness recall her from 2 years overseas travel. (PB)

A bookseller's mistake ruins a poor man's romance by substituting a book on 'False Hair' for the book of poems actually purchased. (PB)

A father's objections to his son's romance are overcome when the girl comes to stay the summer as a companion to her cousin - and finally reveals herself. (PB)

A clergyman's prayer for a new heart for a dying sailor is corrected by the latter who declares it is a new liver he needs. (PB)

On the types of story-tellers - boring and entrancing; including a brief account of a particularly tedious example. [Includes passing reference to Chinaman as victims akin to lamp-posts for such boors.] (PB)

Universal ignorance prevails on the true identity of 'Herr Zegovinian'. (PB)

A Sydney club fellow boasts of his skill in sharing a stranger's umbrella during a sudden downpour - until he discovers the theft of his watch purse. (PB)

Extract from John Tyndall's Hours of Exercise in the Alps recounting his survival of an avalanche in the Swiss Alps. Exciting. (PB)

Anecdote from a retired admiral about the wooden decoy duck served to him as dinner in a previous lodging house. (PB)