Cirrus@Austlit

Set in England in pre-railway days. Account of a fat Englishman who takes a fitting revenge on four Oxford students travelling to London who refuse to move and allow him to have two adjacent seats - he having paid for two. Humour. (PB)

Domestic. Husband's tale continually interrupted by wife's distractions. Humour. Slight. (PB)

Melbourne domestic tale of dreams, prognostication and gambling. A Melbourne share broker bets very heavily on the racing double, dreamt of several times in succession, but has doubts after one horse wins. Dreams during the week between races induce him to hedge - by which he reduces his winnings by £5000. His wife's dream interpretations confound him - but harmony is restored. Amusing. Includes a reference to Grosvenor's wife, Lady Loch. (PB)

Domestic tale. A young bride complains of her husband's niceness until he gives her a taste of his displeasure ... Slight. (PB)

Humorous English tale of horse-betting and romance in an Irish-Yorkshire regiment when one of their members draws a favourite in a national racing sweep. Marriage proposals and hedging bets abound ... (PB)

Historically-based French narrative of money earned by a Rothschild when mistaken for a competing timber merchant. Irony. (PB)

Racing and office tale set in England. Three London clerks decide to take the day off to attend the Derby but their letters of excuse reach the office too early ... Slight; humour. (PB)

A mature man recalls his youthful love for the mother of Mabel Helton and her love for another darkly mysterious man whom she married, only to discover he had seduced another woman by pretending marriage. That woman killed him, all three dying close together. The narrator raised the daughter, and loving her with the peace of middle age and not the passion of youth, wins her consent to their marriage. Philosophical musings fill the tale - air of mystery and tragedy leading to a hard won peace. Interesting even bizarre in some of its implications; includes a curiously overdrawn quality too. (PB)

English social sketch of a lawyer's wife at the Winchester races who follows the advice of her husband's colleague and approaches an elderly gentleman to lay her winning bet for her. She is confused when later introduced to him as one of the local judges of the assizes. Legal ambition and gambling at the horse races. Humour. Slight tale. (PB)

Romance of the young, beautiful dressmaker's apprentice Emma Gray and handsome footballing clerk Jack Castle. A year's courtship nearly ends in disaster when Jack kills Emma's pet dog by a stray kick in his last match but all is reconciled and a happy marriage follows. Light, pleasantly uneventful, smoothly written; suburban feel. (PB)

Domestic. A loveless marriage is transformed by the adoption of a poor woman's child - their awakening affection is sealed by its death. Slight; some sentiment. (PB)

Romance set in a French village. A quarrel between the fathers of a pair of lovers separates them. They meet clandestinely but when her suitor is falsely accused of theft Rosine appears in court for him to testify to his innocence. They marry ... Slight. (PB)

English biographical tale of three schoolboys and a narrow escape from a sea cave in Devonshire. The lucky chief protagonist later became a martyr missionary in Uganda. Tone of a tale for boys - exemplary adventure tale. (PB)

A pre-arranged marriage is declined by the woman who refuses to bind or be bound by death-bed wishes. A meeting as strangers leads to love - but obstacles have to be overcome ... Slight sub-theme of abandoned child being reunited with her true noble father, as a woman. Slight, pleasant. (PB)

A letter found in the back of a mirror is explained in France two years later when the narrator falls in love with the writer, and meets the suitor to whom she had addressed the letter years before. All ends happily as the former suitor is by then happily married to someone else. Slightly overworked. Americans in Europe. (PB)

Narrative of an English bride who returns single from a trip to the US rather than marry a drunkard. Concludes with moral social reflections on the question of reform after marriage. (PB)

Sinclair investigates the murder of an old judge in Melbourne. He discovers an unhappy second marriage which caused the judge to cut his young termagent wife out of his will almost entirely and order her to leave with her intellectually retarded sister and supposedly crippled father. The murder is solved with the help of loyal's servants and the leader of a gang of thieves who bargain with Sinclair. Police leniancy in exchange for information. (PB)

English domestic sketch. A mother-in-law's interference in her daughter's marriage reveals her son-in-law's researches - and she mistakes Egyptian mummies for murdered bodies. Humour. (PB)

Humorous social tale of an Algerian general and his ambition for statuary for a garden party. The living sculptures are exposed by a sneeze. Slight. (PB)