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In the reign of Cleopatra, an insignificant young man is in love. Meïamoun is captivated by his beloved, but she seems unattainable. There is a reason why the handsome young fellow is barred from his quest. The one he wants is his queen. He stands on the outskirts of great ceremonies just to catch a glimpse of her. He dreams of her charms and fascinations constantly. One night, having followed her royal cangia along the Nile to a palace at the waters' edge, his obsession overtakes him - through an open window he fires an arrow with a note attached which bears the simple words "I love you." Will Cleopatra acknowledge him? What further feats of daring must he undertake to get near her? If he does, what could possibly happen? In this high-stakes undertaking, one thing is for sure - he will risk his life... One of Cleopatra's Nights was first published with other novellas in a volume entitled A Tear of the Devil in 1839.

Cuffy Mahony is a young boy in country Victoria in the late nineteenth century. He lost his father just under a year ago, and his mother is feeling the heat a little, both in looking after him and his little sister Luce, and in maintaining her job as the village postmistress. But they manage as best they can, with the help of their live-in maid Bowey.Mary Mahony struggles proudly to keep up the standards set when her husband Richard was alive. He had been in his last years a difficult man, and in some senses she is aware of a feeling of newfound freedom. But she does worry about her children and what will become of them on her small wage.She finally decides that the time has come for her to take leave and find a good school with a scholarship for Cuffy in Melbourne. Her house-proudness means that the place must be spruced up, so that her temporary replacement won't get a poor impression. With intense industry she sets about a major tidy and painting job. One day, up a ladder, she reaches over a little too far, and comes crashing down heavily onto the floor. This minor disaster starts a chain of events that will alter irredeemably all their lives.With extraordinarily lucid and forceful prose, Henry Handel Richardson charts the inner worlds of mother and son as they attempt to overcome their fears and face life without becoming too cowed by doubt. The End of a Childhood is both a pendant piece to Richardson's great trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, and readable separately as a delicate, heartbreaking and beautiful portrait of a crucial nexus in the life of a family.

Miss Ethel Browne is a typical adornment of her era. A single lady of a certain age in the period before the First World War usually assists a senior, or less healthy family member with the running of their house, or affords help of a more modest kind, in order to feel useful. Sometimes they are inspired to approach places of last resort to befriend and encourage poor unfortunates.In Miss Browne's case the Rescue Home pairs her with Mabel Roberts, who has had a terrible start in life, and has fallen into dubious ways. Miss Browne is somewhat dazzled by Mabel's beauty, and charmed by her simple transparency and determination to be good. She finds Mabel a good position as general maid to two elderly ladies, and all seems set fair.But, as the months go by, so do the reports of arguments, temper and secretiveness. Positions come and go, as Miss Browne struggles to help Mabel surmount her failings and find a foothold in the better life. Having 'slipped' somewhat, in a position as a waitress in a restaurant, Mabel disappears. In the end, Miss Browne finds her, only to discover that life has dealt Mabel a harsher blow.Miss Browne's Friend was originally published in four parts between June 1914 and March 1915 in the Free Church Suffrage Times, a year after the publication of F. M. Mayor's celebrated first novel, The Third Miss Symons. With its mixture of wry humour and tragedy, it confirmed her reputation as one of the most sensitive exponents of the challenges and uncertainties of single women's lives in her times.