Short stories
Below and On Top
Edward Dyson · 1898
Opening lines
THE Peep-o'-Day had been shut down for a long time now.
Text quoted from gutenberg.net.au
Synopsis
Stories from the goldfields of Victoria, twenty-three in the contents of Project Gutenberg Australia. Young Dick Haddon haunts the abandoned mine where his father was killed and becomes attached to a widow driven mad by grief who calls out to her husband at the bottom of the shaft. A superstitious trucker, alone at night pumping water from the galleries, is pursued by the dream of a mate crushed to death; two gold diggers quarrel over a reef in an old mine; at the Sunday service, two Methodist preachers vie in eloquence.
Context
The book appeared in Melbourne from George Robertson in 1898, in 327 pages, with drawings by Phil May, Alf Vincent and the author's brother. It collects stories given to the Bulletin, the Argus, the Melbourne Punch, the Antipodean and Cosmos, and only the title story was previously unpublished. In 1954, Norman Lindsay judged the stories of the boy Dick Haddon weaker, perhaps born of Tom Sawyer, and held the mining stories to be the lasting part of the collection. Sydney University Press reissued it in 2004.
Who it is for
About twenty short stories in English, which can be read separately; the vocabulary of the mines sometimes calls for a note.
Prizes and reception
The Herald praised its lively style in 1898; Norman Lindsay considered one of its stories a classic in any country.
Sources for this page 3
The pages consulted to check this page.