A column canvassing current literary news including announcements of upcoming publications of Australian writers by Angus and Robertson, Ward, Locke & Co. and Routledge. (Most of the titles noted appeared in 1896, but the column mentions a prose work by A. B. Paterson - 'A Saltbush Certainty' - and a novel by Henry Lawson - 'The Hero of Ridelay [Red Clay]' - which do not appear to have been published.)
The column notes Steele Robertson's intention to publish a collection of his poems under the title 'The Pathway of the Sun', 'a poem which led off a Christmas Bulletin a couple of years back'.
Reprinted is an item from the previous week's Sydney Daily Telegraph, reproduced from the London Daily Mail. The column relates to Ethel Turner's presentation in London society by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (The Free-Lance disputes the timing of Turner's visit, claiming the author was in Sydney at the time of her supposed London visit.)