Cirrus@Austlit

Humorous account of a French duel in Paris in which Twain claimed to have acted as a second. He was the only party injured when his principal fell on him ... (PB)

Compares friendship to china in an extended metaphor. (PB)

Romance between a chambermaid and a coachman is broken by a pretty new housemaid. Narrated through the eyes of the small daughter of the house. Engaging; especially a fight between women involving a tureen of soup. (PB)

A romance between a poor doctor and a beautiful heiress ends happily when her brother's forgery swallows her fortune and so releases her from a long-standing engagement to a worldly man. (PB)

Describes a patent alarm-bed which tips the sleepers out if they do not promptly arise - and describes its malfunctions too. (PB)

Moral examples of inconveniences politely accepted outside the home but harshly condemned within. (PB)

A US volunteer soldier's account of his preparations for and reactions under fire as captain of a firing unit. Interesting, credible description. (PB)

Tale of her first position as housemaid to a newly married couple, and of the murderous friendship of the husband's first love. She cares for the wife from the time she gives birth, and mother and child soon die. Includes a ghostly apparition in the maid's dreams. Well narrated. (PB)

An old maid school-teacher tells a summer boarder of her 32 year old romance of the nearby iron foundry, and how it was frustrated by a letter mislaid during house-cleaning. Life, however, proves to be long ... Pleasant. (PB)

A duel beside the Mississippi between Judge Taggard of New Orleans and Colonel Chase of Baton Rouge over a poker game aboard a steamer is averted by a wooden leg. Simple appeal. (PB)

Set in Victoria and Haly, an aspiring artist and musician choses ambition over the love of a gentle orphan. He finds success and love in Rome and Capri but death takes away the young wife while the orphan lives a life of service in Melbourne burying him at last in Kew cemetery. Some promise. (PB)

A child wins the heart of a misanthropic cripple and leads him to romance, and to discover that she is his own daughter. Slight, suburban setting. (PB)

Tragedy set beside Victoria's Goulburn River of a beautiful young girl courted artfully by a handsome commercial traveller. An anonymous letter reveals that he is already married just before she is to marry him. He never reappears and after a brief sojourn in Tasmania she returns to her old home to die. Certain quiet appeal. (PB)

Comic tale of a drunken cowardly Victorian police constable whose boasting resulted in his being locked up in his own goal by Ned Kelly, who then robbed the town bank. Not only did O'Shicer then lose his lady and the pie she had cooked but the strip from his uniform for lokcing up the new police inspector he assumed was an imposter. (PB)

A colonial romance set in 1878. The poor but respectable, spirited and attractive 21 year-old Dolly Wentworth takes a position as children's companion with a widower to meet a husband. Her progress is told through letters to her sister, and she seems to have found a young handsome suitor in her employer's cousin until an accident reveals the true state of her heart. Divertingly light. (PB)

A wealthy Victorian farmer's daughter receives two proposals by letter, one from a handsome but not yet established neighbour, one from a rich old man in Melbourne. She decides on the latter but fate intervenes and she mixes up the replies. (PB)

A poor widow's deception finds at last a home for herself and her six children. (PB)

An English actress' response to discovering that King George III and his queen's notice was because they mistook her for a man. Thin. (PB)

A tea party of adolescent girls write down the type of man they intend to marry. Over 20 years later they meet and discover none has married according to plan. (PB)

On the gentle efforts that could be made to restore friendships often left to die by pride. (PB)