Cirrus@Austlit

Reminiscence narrated on a pleasure yacht becalmed off Phillip Island, by an ex-army Major. He recalls the tale of an old school friend met as a convict in Van Diemen's Land. A sensitive youth, betrayed when his wife ran away with his best friend, is convicted of forgery years later when he is the victim of a confidence trick in his brother's business ... Interesting tale, set in breezy 1890s frame. (PB)

US romance of an engagement lightly broken and five years' separation which mature a high-spirited girl into a 'loving woman', give her experience of society, and him of New Mexico and the West. His reported death in a railway accident completes her 'nobility' of heart ... Reunited at last. Pleasant.(PB)

English racing tale of a young gentleman rescued by two older friends from suicide when the owner of the horse he had heavily backed dies in Gibraltar, thus rendering his win void. Their friendly intervention and the time difference between Spain and England save his life and his bet. (PB)

English tale of the supernatural. A junior partner returning to London from a fishing holiday in North Wales shares his old railway carriage with the ghosts of a young girl and her murderer - her fiancée. Well told - visitation had been experienced before on race day when an old carriage was used again for crowds. (PB)

Romance and tale of the supernatural. A man after making his fortune in Australia returns to England and seeks a home and wife. In a reputedly haunted house in the north he unmasks a ghost and finds in her a wife. Light. (PB)

US frontier sketch of a photographer who outsmarts a bullying desperado - taking not only his portrait but his pistol. Slight. (PB)

Set in the late 1880s and early 1890s. A London doctor and heavy gambler agrees to pay a dying patient £1500 a year until his death. He continues to lose heavily and is tempted for a time not to extend his patient's life into the next financial year - but overcomes it, and is rewarded. Competently written, some appeal in their friendship. (PB)

A trouserless journey is a source of great discomfort to a cricketer caught half-way through a change of flannels in his carriage by a lady. Light humour. (PB)

Domestic humour. A new husband refuses his first request - to call his wife's father 'papa'. (PB)

English tale of the supernatural, set in the 1870s. A timber merchant returns to a little country town at the insistence of his dreams, and arrives in court in time to save an innocent man convicted of murder. Plain tale. (PB)

Pleasant English rural adventure and romance. A rich American refuses to allow anyone to cross his new estate until a neighbouring governess wins permission in a new dress and rain storm. She saves his son from drowning and the father proposes - but she is already engaged to his estranged nephew ... Reconciliation and marriage follow. Light. (PB)

London anecdote of the comedian Sothern dramatised - a practical joke played on a friend concerning upper teeth in a cow's jaws. Outstretched humour. (PB)

A lawyer's test in choosing a new office clerk. Slight and brief. (PB)

Domestic and legal tale. A newly-married man becomes jealous of his wife's relationship with a handsome stranger. When he discovers that the stranger is accused of a crime which he is prosecuting he determines to win, despite his wife's pleas. His evidence only saves the man - who is his wife's brother. Slight, predictable but competent. (PB)

Victorian country tale of a young man's jealousy of Rose Redmond and his employer, old miser Jubal, which leads him to be charged with the old man's murder. In fact Rose's father killed him and fakes his own murder by a swagman - though murdering the swagman too. Rose clears her lover, and her drunken father dies as he is arrested by the local mounted troopers ... (PB)

Domestic. A wife accidentally burns a £40 cheque give to her by her husband to buy a sealskin coat. Her fear to face him - thinking she has lost the money - leads him to fear she has run off. Slight; woman's financial inability and man's fears. (PB)