Cirrus@Austlit

Advice on winning the approval of a girl's parents. (PB)

Detective story and romance set in London and Yorkshire. A lawyer helps solve a theft in his friend's country house, clearing the name of his host's sister and proving the detective wrong. Pleasant, though resolution less satisfactory than the mystery. (PB)

Anecdote of Murray, the London publisher, and how he nearly refused to publish the 'Life of Pitt'. (PB)

A noble English family own a Murray River station to which the son is returning with a friend after two years abroad. The son falls in love with his sister's beautiful companion and the sister with her brother's friend. But a mystery must first be solved involving the companion's long lost sister and the friend's wife. Begins better than it ends. (PB)

An April-fool's joke precipitates a romance between a bachelor of 50 and his mature neighbour, thereby doing his mischievous nephews out of his inheritance. (PB)

Sir James Thornhill is saved from falling off the scaffold from which he painted St Paul's cupola by an assistant deliberately painting over his work. (PB)

A rash young Englishman decrying the theft of a lace handkerchief, is shown the power of Venice's secret police sitting in masked tribunal and with the thief executed. Historical adventure, chiefly atmospheric. (PB)

Tragedy of lovers crossed by fate near the Austro-Italian border in 1866. A brigand father accidentally kills his daughter's suitor after saving his life earlier. Good opera plot; thin but dramatic. (PB)

Two brothers practicing law in the same town prove almost indistinguishable. Humour. (PB)

Two Australian girls beg a story from Miss Hartley who tells them a ghostly murder story from her youth in England. A stay at a country cottage is shortended by her vision of a murder, and the owner's enquiries into the whereabouts of his former tenants reveal a murder and 10 years unfounded blackmail. Structurally irrelevant, Australian introduction; story intricate. (PB)

Mabel's guardian transfers the love he once felt for her mother to her ward, resolving never to tell. She has a rich young suitor for several years but just as the guardian is about to leave her to his rival, he discovers that she loves him instead. Competent, predictable. (PB)

A story of a judge of the King's Bench and his evidence clearing an old woman from a charge of witchcraft. Plain. (PB)

A poor English curate orders a meal for 12 as a light revenge on the bishop who bade him order a meal at a nearby inn without inviting him to join in - the bishop having 12 titles. Slight interest. (PB)

Summers was born in England, attained success there, lived for a time in Australia and executed many large works for the Victorian government including statues of royalty outside the public library. He died at 51 from overwork. Narrative interesting and lively sketch in general. (PB)

Brief anecdote of a Portsmouth Captain's reticense - here, in relation to the price of pigeons. (PB)