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'Leaping Lena is the train which, once every week, bumps over the 300 mile railway line between Darwin and Birdum. In this article Esme Johnston, Australia's brightest woman reporter, describes a bone-jogging journey over the track.' (Publisher's abstract p. 6)
'A century ago, grim vessels lay at anchor in Hobson's Bay. They were the notorious hulks packed with criminals for whom the gaols could find no room, floating hells crammed with human misery. Yet on board one of them was a young man, who, under happier circumstances, might have been successful and even famous. This is the tragic story of Owen Suffolk, victim of circumstance and prey to his own weakness, who left posterity in his debt by writing an autobiography which showed what life meant to a convict. After many years of penal servitude he became, ironically enough, a contributor to the exclusive English 'Gentleman's Magazine''.(Publisher's blurb p. 29)
'It may have been logical, but it was perhaps rather unimaginative of little Miss Lockyer to call her shop 'Lockyer Library.' The locals rather suspected it to be some sort of subtle reflection on their honesty where borrowed books were concerned. Even my friend Marian, who I always believed to have a sense of humour, thought she surely might have chosen a more tactful name.' (Author's abstract p. 32)
