Nell has a friend in need but will her kind heart wreck her chance for future happiness? A meddlesome prank and a stray kitten bring Helen and Gabriel together but will he be able to admit his feelings? When Lily goes missing will Archibald trust his wife or listen to the ‘evidence’ of family friends? Is Marie’s runaway kookaburra the last straw or the answer to her problems? Will Teresa’s faith in the Madonna bring her beloved Carlo home safely from the coral fishing?Catherine Mar...

Tom Morison is a reluctant freeholder in South Australia and unsuited to farming. But Tom is redeemed when his education in geology and chemistry finally gives the family their best Christmas ever – a ‘golden’ one. In this and eight other ‘lost’ stories of goldmining in colonial-era Australia, a colourful cast of characters star in stories of love and crime, loyalty and betrayal, spirituality and avarice. And the eternal lure of gold and its corrupting influence are ever-present.As...

Christmas in fiction – a time when families reunite and love blossoms, when evil is overcome and tragedy is averted. Cruelty and revenge are offset by heroism and forgiveness, and constancy in love is rewarded. But in Australia Christmas stories are also marked by fire and flood, cyclone and drought, and the perils of isolation. Cattle drovers find themselves stuck in a gumtree, a pitiless squatter learns the cost of cruelty, and love’s ‘cooee’ is heard as far away as London. All the drama...

This collection provides the first comprehensive account of eResearch and the new empiricism as they are transforming the field of Australian literary studies in the twenty-first century. These effects are especially evident in the exponential expansion of the online research environment, the rise of book history, print culture studies, the history of reading and publishing, and in the resulting transformation of Australian literary criticism and history.The essays range from accou...

Female novelists have always invested as much narrative energy in constructing their male characters-heroes and villains-as in envisioning their female protagonists, but this fact has received very little scholarly attention to date. In Women Constructing Men, scholars from Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain and the United States begin to sketch the outline of a new literary history of women writing men in the English-speaking world from the eighteenth century until today. ...

A prolific contributor to the popular periodicals of her day, Bithia Mary Croker was an Irish novelist whose work memorably portrays everyday life in colonial India. Today, she is perhaps best remembered for her ghost stories, twenty of which are presented in this comprehensive collection of Croker's supernatural fiction. So sit back and get ready to enjoy some classic Victorian and Edwardian chills from the darkest reaches of the Empire...

In "Coo-ee Tales of Australian Life by Australian Ladies", Harriet Anne Patchett Martin unveils a rich tapestry of narratives that illuminate the everyday experiences and aspirations of Australian women in the 19th century. Through a series of engaging short stories, Martin employs a vivid and accessible literary style, blending realism with a touch of local color that captures the unique Australian landscape and culture. The stories offer not only a window into the lives of women during a...

Most people know Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes. But he was a prolific writer throughout his long career, producing far more than just the Holmes mysteries. This volume assembles 65 of his non-Sherlockian tales, covering a wide range of subjects: mysteries, adventure, supernatural, medical, nautical, and pugelist stories are just the tip of the iceberg! Here, in more than 1,100 pages, is one of the largest collections of Doyle short stories ever published. Included are: THE LOS...

Hours of great reading await, with ghostly tales from some of the 19th and 20th century's most renowned authors. Here is the lineup:AT CHRIGHTON ABBEY, by Mary Elizabeth BraddonTHE HAUNTED MILL, by Jerome K. JeromeTHE GHOST CLUB, by John Kendrick BangsTHE SHADOWS OF THE DEAD, by Louis BeckeTHE ROOM IN THE TOWER, by E. F. BensonTHE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS, by Lord Edward Bulwer-LyttonTHE MIDDLE BEDROOM, by H. de Vere StacpooleTHE DRU...

The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account by living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

Table of ContentsHonore de Balzac: An Historical MysteryJohn Buchan: The Thirty-Nine StepsEgerton Castle: The Baron's QuarryEdmund Clerihew Bentley: Trent's Last CaseGilbert Keith Chesterton:The Man Who Knew Too MuchThe Man Who Was ThursdayFather Brown:The Innocence of Father BrownThe Wisdom of Father BrownRobert Erskine Childers: Riddle of the SandsAgatha Christie:The Mysterious Af...

Passionate, headstrong and imaginative, Sybylla Melvyn is one of the most endearing heroines of Australian literature.'I am given to something which a man never pardons in a woman. You will draw away as though I were a snake when you hear.' With this warning, Sybylla confesses to her rich and handsome suitor that she is given to writing stories and bound, therefore on a brilliant career. In this ironically titled and riotous first novel by Miles Franklin, originally published in 190...