Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction Read Online Free PDF Page B

1890s.
    Bibliography
    Challis and Young, 2010: Angela Challis and Marty Young, Macabre (Brimstone Press, 2010)
    Doig, 2007: James Doig, Australian Gothic: An Anthology of Australian Supernatural Fiction 1867-1939 (Equilibrium Books, 2007; reprinted Borgo Press, 2013)
    Doig, 2008: James Doig, Australian Nightmares: More Australian Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Equilibrium Books, 2008; reprinted Borgo Press, 2013)
    Doig, 2010: James Doig, Australian Ghost Stories (Wordsworth Editions, 2010)
    Doig, 2011: James Doig, Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (Equilibrium Books, 2011; reprinted Borgo Press, 2013)
    Doig, 2012: James Doig. Ghost Stories and Mysteries , by Ernest Favenc (Borgo Press, 2012).
    Gelder, 1994: Ken Gelder, The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories (Oxford University Press, 1994)
    Gelder, 2007: Ken Gelder and Rachael Weaver, The Anthology of Colonial Australian Gothic Fiction (Melbourne University Press, 2007)
    Stewart, 1978: Neil Stewart, Australian Stories of Horror and Suspense from the Early Days (Australasian Book Society, 1978; reprinted Hale & Iremonger, 1983)
    Wannan, 1983: Bill Wannan, Australian Horror Stories (Currey O’Neil, 1983)
    [1] . A collection of Favenc’s weird tales, Ghost Stories and Mysteries , is available from Borgo Press (2012).

JERRY BOAKE’S CONFESSION, by Ernest Favenc
    The Bulletin , 8 March 1890
    Ernest Favenc was born on 21 October 1845 at 5 Saville Row, Walworth, Surrey, the son of Abraham George Favenc, and his wife, Emma, née Jones. His father was a merchant by trade and his occupation appears to have sent him to different locations, as Favenc was educated at Temple College, Cowley, in Oxfordshire, and in Berlin. With his two sisters, Edith and Ella, and his brother, Jack, Favenc came to Australia in 1863. After a few months working in Sydney, Favenc moved to a cattle station owned by his uncle in north Queensland where he worked as a drover. He spent the next sixteen years in north and central Queensland working on stations, usually as a superintendent. By 1871 he was writing fiction and poetry for the Queenslander , and in 1878 Favenc was placed in charge of an expedition, financed by Gresley Lukin, the proprietor and literary editor of the periodical. The expedition, which became known as the Queenslander Transcontinental Expedition , was tasked with surveying a route for a railway line from Brisbane to Port Darwin.
    Favenc’s journalism and his successful land speculations in the Northern Territory in the early 1880s allowed him to marry and settle down in Sydney. On 15 November 1880, Ernest Favenc married Bessie Mathews, whom he had first met in Brisbane in the mid-1870s, at St John’s Baptist Church, Ashfield, Sydney. The 1890s were Favenc’s most productive period as a writer, and his best tales of mystery and the supernatural were published between 1890 and 1895, five of which are printed here. By this time he was working mainly for The Bulletin , which was edited by J. F. Archibald whose preference for the short, unadorned bush yarn influenced Favenc’s style. Favenc continued writing into the new century, but his alcoholism affected his productivity and the quality of his work. By May 1905 Favenc was seriously ill in Royal Prince Albert Hospital, and later in the year a bad fall that broke his thigh confined him to St Vincent’s Hospital. He died on 14 November 1908 in Lister Hospital in western Sydney.
    Perhaps one of the most popular fellows on the then newly-opened H— Goldfield, in Far North Queensland, was Jack Walters. Everybody knew him, and everybody liked him, and there was great chaff and much popping of corks ’ere he started down to C— with the avowed intention of getting married. Walters had shares in one or two good mines, and had a tidy sum of money with him when he left the field amidst the congratulations of ‘the boys’ on his approaching nuptials. Jack was a friend of mine;