Cirrus@Austlit

English elopement foiled when a newspaper reporter mistakenly enters the wrong carriage after a fashionable ball in the midlands. Slight. (PB)

A black child's enjoyment when her Christmas stocking is filled by the parents of her friend Helen. Probably southern US. Slight; warm. (PB)

Theatrical tale set on the Victorian gold-diggings in the 1850s; reminiscence by the narrator, a travelling theatre manager. Recalls one of his actors confronted by a famous actress who recognised him as the man who assailed and robbed her husband - who was then dying from his wounds. The manager later married the widow. Light slightly ramshackle tale. The 'bushranging' actor was an ex-convict with a love of excitement. (PB)

Domestic tangle when a husband defers telling his wife that she has dropped a borrowed diamond brooch - and she calls in the police. Slight. (PB)

Reflections on Christmas and the spirit of giving etc. Like a homily. (PB)

English family tale of the infant son of a sea captain and his wife who drifts out to sea when his young sister is supposed to be looking after him. He is lost, believed drowned for six months until he returned by another ship's captain who picked him up at sea. Portrait of the children particularly warm. Pleasant. (PB)

Supersition and murder on a Singapore schooner. A brilliant emerald stolen from an Aztec temple carries a curse of death for its possessors. A passenger and the entire crew of a ship board from Singapore to Manilla and die a succession of terrible deaths as greed and murder take their toll. Competent; attempts to create a mood that is only partially realised. (PB)

A burning Christmas Day outback in 1840 and two English stockmen, left without food, journey to their Devon neighbour's station and join his generous Christmas party. One of the pair enjoys not only the repast but the fair company - and later marries her. Slight, colourful, cheery, egalitarian yarn: well-connected Englishmen meet successful once-starving Devon family in the land of opportunity. The earlier version includes the reminiscence it stirs of an English Christmas in 1832 when poverty forced his family to emigrate ...(PB)

Christmas traditions of gift-giving in Belgium and North Germany. Slight; first-person account. (PB)

Christmas tale from Germany. A poor family's Christmas nearly ends tragically when little Conrad steals off to Strasbourg to earn money singing Christmas carols with two friends but after earning many gilders becomes lost in the snow. He is found still alive by his father in the morning ... Family sentiments; warm. (PB)

Tale of a seaside village and the Cadbury family's enmity for their step-sister and aunt who has Mrs Cadbury's brother's inheritance. She is murdered for jewels which are not real and the local policeman not only helps solve it but shares a diamond legacy with a poor gentleman of the village. Idiot daughter's murdress. (PB)

Two drunks mix up a literary conversation. Forced humour. (PB)

US romance of marital estrangement and reconciliation through a child. Audrey Eames marries noble Wanley Randall to prove her indifference to a suitor rumoured to have married another. When both discover that he is single and she loves him Wanley and Audrey are estranged - until grief, self-restraint, and the shared love of an orphaned niece reconcile them on her bed of sickness. Love learned through character reformation ... (PB)

Christmas on an Australian station sees a murder in England confessed and estranged lovers reconciled to the strains of the Christmas carol, concertinas and station hands' singing. Old Rory confesses that he murdered the miserly uncle of Harold Rory in England three years before, thus clearing the man's name and reconciling Harold and his fiancee Hazel Vane - now a governess on the station. Light; cheerful station life contrasted to misery of the murder in England. Sense of nature, sunshine, open air etc. (PB)