Cirrus@Austlit

For years Offenbach seeks the music of 'Zimmer's Waltz', the first 8 bars of which his mother hummed to him as a child. At last by accident he meets the composer who dies soon after but leaves him the manuscript, a ring and the history of his sad life. Touching tale set in Europe. (PB)

A heavily veiled young woman moves into a previously untennanted house but receives no visitors. Rumours abound especially as screams are heard from the house at odd intervals. Death reveals her secret ... an insane step-father - and releases her to marry the doctor. (PB)

A surgeon called to a titled lady's mansion in St James Park, London, to treat a monkey, takes satiric revenge. (PB)

Pastoral romance ends as two rustic suitors for the economically eligible Medusa Crake defect to court the beautiful Jenny Allen. Jenny favours the city-bred Will Harvey, and Medusa has her revenge in setting her former suitors to fight each other in masked disguise. Energetic appeal. (PB)

A Scottish preacher's non-leavened exaggerated elucidation of a tricky biblical passage - and Sandy's response. Over-extended. (PB)

A tomboy (though unmistakably feminine!) is won by her brother's handsome reserved friend when she discovers him hiding in her wardrobe with her sombrero on. His mistake turns her into a woman! Pleasant charm. (PB)

An American visiting London is given a letter of introduction at Dover by an Englishman he met on the Channel crossing. A roughly spoken man he meets on the train rescues him from the nest of thieves the introduction leads him to ... Well-written, brief tale. (PB)

A husband is reproved strongly for correcting his wife in public, turns over a new leaf and their marriage improves. Actual interaction of the couple well-realised but moral prosy. (PB)

Pathetic sentimental scene of a child's death - poverty not leaving her mother's heart as bereft at this loss. (PB)

Tale of a Victorian schoolboy who journeys to Melbourne by rail to become a clerk but after several quiet years of work is led into gambling. He loses £500 of his employer's money but through the intervention of kindly people is saved from suicide and becomes a teacher, eventually paying the money back. Overly descriptive in parts but captures a youth's introduction to the railway, Melbourne, gambling dens etc., very clearly. (PB)

A Paris murderer is identified through the persistent behaviour of his victim's mastiff. Early 15th century France. (PB)

A farmer's remarriage drives his two sons from their home and disappoints his spinster housekeeper. An illness changes the heart of his eldest son who reveals the new wife's murderous nature, saving him from poison ... (PB)

An elderly aunt's advice on wool dye is frustrated by her poor memory. (PB)

Anecdotes on misunderstandings regarding spoken languages.

On the difficulties of friendships between men and women caused by others' comments. (PB)