Cirrus@Austlit

Editor's note in The Australian Journal, 4 November 1865, p.156 states that 'Memoirs of an Australian Police Officer' will alternate in the weekly issues of the journal with the series 'Adventures of an Australian Mounted Trooper' and that 'these narratives will be of the most spirited description, and embrace the most extraordinary adventures and perils that have characterised the history of the colonies'.

Stories in these series were published anonymously but the editor's note states that they are 'from the respective authors of The Shepherd's Hut ' and 'The Golden [i.e. Stolen] Specimens'", implying different authors. Some of the stories are attributed by Lucy Sussex to Borlase ( Sussex, Lucy, and Elizabeth Gibson. Mary Helena Fortune), and some were reprinted in his 1867 collection The Night Fossickers. However two of the stories in 'Memoirs of an Australian Police Officer' which first appeared in 1865 were reprinted in 1909 as part of 'The Detective's Album' series and appear under the name W.W. The story 'The Dead Witness' is considered by most authorities to be the work of Mary Fortune (Waif Wander or W. W.) and there are suggestions that Borlase may have plagiarised her work or that her work was used to cover a shortfall in Borlase's writing schedule.

For a full discussion of this series, its authorship and the literary relationship between Mary Fortune and Borlase see 'Whodunit? : Literary Forensics and the Crime Writing of James Skip Borlase and Mary Fortune.'