Cirrus@Austlit

Vignettes and reflections on the true Christian meaning of Christmas. (PB)

Adventure and romance on the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s-60s. A young English digger gives up drinking when he loses his big nugget after a Christmas spree. He finds it again a year later with the help of the storekeeper's daughter. Includes sober, faithful friend and a violent thief, eventually hung for murder. Tone of compassion and calm - change from early WW tales of violence, etc. Mentions resumed search for gold in Victoria in 1893 - recalls old days. (PB)

Gambling tale. A professional gambler insures his life and stakes it on a Christmas game of cards. He is about to pay the dues when the kindly owner of the gambling rooms and his victor at cards reveal that the insurance company has gone broke. Light; subject of some interest in the novelty. (PB)

Adventure tale of trips in a London train on two successive Christmas Eves - and a ghost revealed as a deaf and dumb fellow passenger with his own carriage key. Supernatural explained. Slight. (PB)

Melbourne Christmas tale of a stoical Philosopher's fall from detachment when - with a doctor friend - he visits a sick mother and her new-born son. Abandoned by her family in Carlton, he invites them to live with his sister and himself in Fitzroy. Five years later he proposes. Nature and human affections win in this warmly ironic little tale. (PB)

US tale of the Civil War on Christmas Eve 1864. A nighttime raid by Union soldiers results in a bloody battle and a family farmhouse desolate. (PB)

Set largely in San Francisco, concluding in Australia. Jack, a sailor, leaves the sea to marry a singer, an honest girl though seduced and betrayed by a bullying sailor. The bully arranges for Jack to be shanghaied the day after his wedding, but a knife-fight aboard ship and a passing steamer return him to shore and his wife - and they emigrate to Australia. Light. (PB)

A bottle's account of the destruction wrought on a happy family by the spirits it contained - resulting in murder and a drowning - persuade its new owner to keep only vinegar in it. Abstinence exemplary tale; competently written. (PB)

English village romance. A father's refusal to allow his daughter to marry separates lovers for ten years while he earns his fortune in America and she passes Christmases alone after her father's death, watching others' children. At last ... Slight. (PB)

Recalls an English family hymn-singing excursion to the vicar's in a Yorkshire village, their failure and his dismissal of them as drunk. His tale of thrashing them the next day is revealed as exaggeration ... Light humour. (PB)

The ex-convict's tale set on a West Australian sheep station 1889-91, and briefly in England. A gentleman's son tells of his adventures abroad in Heidelberg and then in the army. Hitting a superior officer in 1867 for using his name to deceive a seduced girl, he spent 21 years in W. A. until finding a job as cook on the station. In 1891 he learns of an English inheritance and returns ... Light. (PB)

Set in Victoria, a released Pentridge prisoner attempts to go straight but a Melbourne policeman and country prejudice are against him. He finds a friend in a young barrister he rescues from being run over by a train - and in the country town he goes to in search of work he assists to clear him of a charge of murder. Old fellow prisoners conspire to draw him into a burglary, he is injured, the robbery fails and his father is nearly killed ... Parricide, reform, obstruction and friendship - and reunion with a farming father are elements of the tale. The true murderer is found to be the father's share farmer. (PB)

A lady bids her lover take Europe by storm as an opera singer to win her hand - he obeys, and she learns to regret his absence. They are reunited four years later during a Christmas service at which he sings. Very slight and unlikely. (PB)

Adventure set aboard a US ship near the equator on Christmas Day. An old sailor's courage and self-sacrifice in saving the captain's infant daughter from drowning during a storm and partial shipwreck. Warmth and sentiment. (PB)