The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Humorous tale of a masculine household deserted by its elderly housekeeper and servants. The younger brother mistakes a visiting family friend and heiress for a new maid and she carries on the masquerade until they fall in love ... Lively US romance fueled with comic misunderstandings. (PB)
US romance. Adolescents of different social status are separated when their parents discover their engagement but they are faithful to each other. They meet again during the Civil War, she a nurse and he a soldier dying of fever. (PB)
A gipsy's predictions of a young man's future during a picnic nearly destroys his reputation. Only the woman he loves believes in him until a year later he reveals the gipsy to have been bribed by his rival. Pleasantly unremarkable. (PB)
An orphan is hired as lady's companion to the wealthy Mr Lancaster's mother. The arrival of his pretty ward reveals to her that she loves him and a horse accident prompts him to propose. Slight romance. (PB)
A newly-married couple on honeymoon in County Kerry, Ireland, find a carrier-pigeon which becomes their own. Eventually it saves the wife when she is trapped in an old tower ... Light, occasionally reflective and improbable romance. (PB)
Winter in Picardy, France, in 1870 and a group of German officers bivouack in a French chateau. Captain Max von Rosenheim is attracted to a portrait and when he returns wounded to the chateau, falls in love with the living image (daughter of the original subject). She is already engaged to her cousin and is a patriot - but love and the secret of her birth make all things possible. Well-written and constructed romance. (PB)
A poor but beautiful belle at Newport USA becomes engaged to a rich suitor when she discovers her equally poor but true love is courting an heiress. She is drowned while bathing, and he marries his heiress. Patchy but lively and light touch of cynicism. (PB)
When a bargeman is caught stealing from a storeowner in the township of Wantamboon, between Bourke and Wilcannia, he is summarily punished rather than incur the expenses of a trial. Takes place in December 1879 when the Darling is in flood and an Adelaide steamer and barge are collecting wool bales as cargo. Strong current of authentic reminiscence. (PB)
Bizarre tale of a French soldier who stops at a country inn, is attracted to the keeper's step-daughter, Suzanne, and cuts off the finger of a thief attempting to rob him during the night. On his arrival home he finds his impoverished father is also missing a finger and a trial for attempted murder follows. His testimony, the sacrifice of his own finger and Suzanne's testimony free his father. He parts from Suzanne to die in Africa and she to be faithful until her death. Strange; patchy. (PB)
Episodic impressionistic narrative of a child's quarrel with her mother; her mother's death; removal to an aunt's care; and death in hospital from diptheria. Vivid scene of childhood abandonment albeit sentimental. (PB)
A kindly businessman regrets his harsh words to a clerk late to work because he has just become a father - and gives him a £100 cheque. Business and feelings combined. (PB)