Cirrus@Austlit

'All the world knows Marjorie Lawrence as a famous Australian-born prima donna, as a operatic singer whose triumphs in Wagnerian roles have been acclaimed as among the finest in operatic history.

She came up the hard way and the bitter blow of partial paralysis resulting from poliomyelitis might have quenched a lesser spirit. But Miss Lawrence is courageous as she is brilliant. Undaunted, she has continued her fabulous career, and now enters the literary field with this delightful autobiography, which will have a warm welcome from all Australian readers and music lovers.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Arriving in Capricornia (a fictional name for the Northern Territory) in 1904 with his brother Oscar, Mark Shillingworth soon becomes part of the flotsam and jetsam of Port Zodiac (Darwin) society. Dismissed from the public service for drunkenness, Mark forms a brief relationship with an Aboriginal woman and fathers a son, whom he deserts and who acquires the name of Naw-Nim (no-name). After killing a Chinese shopkeeper, Norman disappears from view until the second half of the novel.

'Oscar, the respectable contrast to Mark, marries and tries to establish himself on a Capricornian cattle station, Red Ochre, but is deserted by his wife and eventually returns for a time to Batman (Melbourne), accompanied by his daughter Marigold and foster son Norman, who has been sent to him after Mark's desertion.

'Oscar rejects the plea of a former employee, Peter Differ, to see to the welfare of his daughter Constance; Constance Differ is placed under the 'protection' of Humboldt Lace, a Protector of Aborigines, who seduces her and then marries her off to another man of Aboriginal descent. Forced into prostitution, Constance is dying of consumption when discovered by a railway fitter, Tim O'Cannon, who will take care of Constance's daughter, Tocky, until his own death in a train accident.
Hearing news in 1928 of an economic boom in Capricornia, Oscar returns to his station, where he is joined by Marigold and Norman, who has grown to manhood believing himself to be the son of a Javanese princess and a solider killed in the First World War. Soon after, he discovers his mother was an Aboriginal woman, and meets his father, with whom he will not reconcile until later in the novel. Norman then goes on a series of journeys to discover his true, Aboriginal self. On the second of these journeys, he meets and wanders in the wilderness with Tocky, who has escaped from the mission station to which she was sent after the death of O'Cannon. During this passage, she kills a man in self-defense, which leads to Norman's being accused of murder, at the same time his father is prosecuted for the death of the Chinese shopkeeper. At the end of the novel they are both acquitted, Heather and Mark are married, and Norman returns to Red Ochre, where he finds the body of Tocky and their child in a water tank in which she had taken refuge from the authorities.' (Source: Oxford Companion to Australian Literature)

'Freelance sleuth Jeffery Blackburn is called in by friend Rollo Morgan when there is a strange death at Rochester House, mansion home of occult scholar Cornelius Rochester. Blackburn learns of a set of mannikins modelled on the occupants of the house. Before long, it becomes clear that whoever receives 'their' mannikin will certainly die. Everyone in the house is a suspect.'

Source: Publisher's blurb

'Seven Poor Men of Sydney is a brilliant portrayal of a group of men and women living in Sydney in the 1920s amid conditions of poverty and social turmoil.

Set against the vividly drawn backgrounds of Fisherman's (Watson's) Bay and the innercity slums, the various characters seek to resolve their individual spiritual dilemmas; through politics, religion and philosophy.

Their struggles, their pain and their frustrations are portrayed with consummate skill in this memorable evocation of a city and an era.' (Publication summary)

'A group of visitors to the Salzburg Festival, brought together by chance, decides to mark time by telling tales. Their sketches, anecdotes, fantasies, legends, tragedies, jokes and parodies combine to make The Salzburg Tales. ' (Publication summary : 2015 edition)

'Julie Purvis, alone after her mother's death, goes to live with her Breton mother's family, until then unknown to her. The story tells of her struggle to achieve intimacy and loving comprehension among those whose blood is hers, but are alien to her in temperament and education. Her efforts to adapt herself to her new environment meet with little success, and she Is finally convinced that her real happiness will be found, not with these strangers to her. but in the country of her birth, which has formed arid can satisfy her necessities.'

Source:

'New Books: Lismore School of Arts', Northern Star, 18 September 1934, p.11.