The stories and poems of John McNeil
(and others)
This site seeks to bring you quality material you can browse online.
(There are no subscriptions, no registration.)
There are also links to the works of other writers.
If you have an item to share, or would like to notify me of other writers,
I would love to hear from you. Please email me at fr33flight@yahoo.com.au
Stories |
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This baby Jesus is not the doll that Father McEvoy placed in his Christmas scene. |
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This story is based on an actual hitch-hiking trip I made one year from Sydney to Perth. |
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Albert Namatjira was an aboriginal painter who was the first of his race to be granted Australian citizenship. The facts of this story are correct, but the realisation is my own. I lived for five years in Australia. You cannot live there without being shaped by the landscape and the spirit of the country. |
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The original idea for this story came from a true incident that happened in a World War II German concentration camp. |
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Christmas is a lonely time for many. Will this year be any different? |
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Children's stories |
Like most parents, I told my children bedtime stories. Some of them I wrote down. |
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David has been blamed for breaking a window, and with the help of Sam the Cat he sets out to discover the real culprit. |
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The animals of Poggitty Farm are taken in by a confidence trickster. |
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Strange things happen when there's a new arrival at Poggitty Farm. |
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True stories |
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When you're single and 30, where are you to find love? |
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The true and full story of the coming of the Christmas child, told in simple English. |
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Reflections |
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That makes at least twice just this week. |
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Poems |
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The world's greatest irony. Before anything, there was The Writer. He called a world into being but was rejected by those he created. (It is seldom I would dare to call a particular piece inspired, but I think this was.) |
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A reflection on Mary in the garden on Easter morning. |
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Collected poems |
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For Patti, who told me what it was like to face one of the hardest decisions a woman has to make. |
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Drama scripts |
Many of these scripts were written as discussion starters, so some may leave you to make up your own mind about the ending. |
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If Jesus were born today, where would we find him? |
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A play for the week after Christmas. Santa does some market research. |
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The inside story of Christmas, told by Mary to doctor and historian Luke. |
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A woman in an unsatisfactory marriage looks for love on the Internet. |
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The behaviour of couples and staff at a honeymoon hotel reveals different expectations of marriage. |
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Uncle Henare was rescued from the gutter as a street kid. Now he devotes his life to helping kids who are not making it....including his own daughter. |
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A humorous look at international travel. |
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A ventriloquist is forced to face issues of dealing with truth, and his unsatisfactory relationship with his wife. |
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A Christmas play for those who don't believe in Christmas (or who have lost what it's about). Joe Davidson is a driven, self-made man. He was born into a poor family, but with hard work has made a name for himself as a property developer. A small, dilapidated house in Linwood has been both his inspiration and his obsession. The house once belonged to his parents, but was taken over by the bank after his father lost his job. Later, as a young married couple, Joe and his wife Miriam rented the house, which had become run down, but was all they could afford. One Christmas, Miriam caught a bad chill in a sudden storm. In their damp and unheated home, she developed pneumonia and never recovered. She died giving birth to the child, a boy, Joshua. Joe has never forgotten the house. In his continuing bitterness at Miriam's death, he has become obsessed with a determination to buy the property, pull the house down and build a new apartment block. But the property is now owned by the City Mission, which uses it as a community drop-in centre. The conflict comes to a head when on the anniversary of Miriam's death, Joe receives an unusual night visitor. |
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Two children playing "Mothers and Fathers" conclude their tea party by acting the same way as their parents. |
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Two neighbours at loggerheads with each other try mediation to settle their quarrel. |
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What's life really like for the middle-aged super-hero with family responsibilities? |
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The reactions of three survivors of a nuclear attack - sheltering in a fallout shelter - to the disaster which has just entered their lives. |
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At the end of time, the people of the world bring their complaints before God. |
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Echoes of the Pied Piper in this full-length play - a classic "good versus evil" drama. |
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A full-scale Easter passion play, beginning with the Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem, and continuing to the resurrection of Jesus. This has been written for an outdoor production, but can easily be adapted for the theatre/church. The script is designed to allow scenes to take place in multiple places around the set. |
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More drama scripts are available at www.dramatix.org |
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Links |
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True stories |
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The true story of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of the most romantic in English literary history. Here, G.K. Chesterton gives wonderful insight into the tensions of the story. |
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By Bud and Jean Ince |
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Author unknown |
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By Paul Deutschman |
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My Loveless Marriage - Why divorce wasn't the answer to my emptiness |
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By Abbie Blair |
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By Sulamith Ish-Kishor |
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Author unknown |
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Author unknown |
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By Michael Jordan Segal |
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By Herman and Rosa Rosenblat |
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By Don Buehner |
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If you don't believe in miracles.... |
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Edmund Phillips |
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Norma Grove |
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Bruce McIver |
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By Robert Strand |
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Author unknown |
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Author unknown |
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Author unknown |
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By Elizabeth Silance Ballard |
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Author unknown |
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Do internet dating sites work? Here are some stories that suggest they can. |
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Romance author Rachel Rossano's romantic proposal. |
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Sharon Palmer |
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Author unknown |
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Regency stories |
I am a great fan of Regency romance. All these novels and short stories are available online. |
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Jane Austen |
All Jane Austen novels are available online. |
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Based on a letter Jane Austen wrote to her niece concerning an Outline for a Novel based on all the BAD ideas she had ever received for improving her own writing! (so, the story is definitely tongue-in-cheek) |
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Georgette Heyer |
The queen of "modern" Regency authors. She effectively invented the genre. |
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The Black Moth (full text) |
Georgette Heyer's first novel (written when she was 17). |
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Three others which have recently become available online. |
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Charlotte Bronte |
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Baroness Orczy |
Many of the books and short stories, including some not published elsewhere. |
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Other Regency stories |
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By Cathy Weisger |
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By Lesley Anne Mcleod |
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Deborah Hale |
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By Jo Beverley |
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By Jo Beverley |
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By Jo Beverley |
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Before you have read many Regency novels, you will meet reference to this story by Mrs (Anne) Radcliffe. It actually exists! It's not my cup of tea, but here it is for the record. "Follow the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Considered by many to be the first "Gothic" novel." |
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Christmas stories |
Christmas stories have a special magic for me, even in the summer Christmas experienced by those of us who live in the southern hemisphere. |
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The classic by O. Henry |
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By Darlene Mindrup |
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By Charles Dickens |
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By Leo Tolstoy |
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By Frank Stockton |
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By Charles Dickens |
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By Kimberly Ripley |
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By Pearl Buck |
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By Jay Frankston |
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By Taylor Caldwell |
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By Anthony Trollope |
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By Anthony Trollope |
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By Chuck Miller |
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By Mary E. Wilkins |
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By Francois Coppee |
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By James Vincent Fusco |
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The true origin of the saying. |
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By A. Conan Doyle (a Sherlock Holmes story) |
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By Anton Chekhov |
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Author unknown |
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By Jack Zavada |
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By Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin |
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By Jack Zavada. (Note: This novella is in pdf format.) |
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Short stories |
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Some more classic O. Henry stories are in this collection. (Project Gutenberg also has other collections.) |
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Rafael Sabatini |
Rafael Sabatini is a largely neglected writer today, but he pioneered the romantic novels of high adventure, sword-fighting and damsels in distress. His most famous works have been translated into the classic swashbuckling films The Sea Hawk, Scaramouche, and Captain Blood. However, these three books represent a small fraction of Sabatini's work. A popular author during his lifetime, he produced 31 novels, 8 short novel/short story collections, 6 nonfiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and a play. Sabatini's writing, usually fiction in a historic setting, explores political intrigue, religion, and the place of chivalry and honor, while entertaining with clever dialogue, deftly drawn characters and action sequences as vivid and thrilling as modern movies. Here are some of his short stories. |
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Anthony Trollope |
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Miscellaneous |
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The classic short story by W. Somerset Maugham |
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By Kerry J. Spencer |
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By Michael Kechula |
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By Deborah Dixon |
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By Holly Lisle |
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By Debra Salonen |
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By Marie Corelli |
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By Jack London |
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Novels |
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The
Mark of Zorro |
The original by Johnston McCulley that inspired several movies. A new version by Isabel Allende has more recently been released - somewhat darker and dealing more with the spirit world of the Indian tribes of Southern California. |
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A romantic, swash-buckling tale - inspired at least two movies. |
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L.M. Montgomery |
If you have read only Anne of Green Gables, you have missed a
great deal. If you have not even read that, time to get going. |
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Charles Dickens |
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My favourite Dickens novel. The BBC made a wonderful six-part TV adaptation, starring among others Paul Scofield, Peter Postlethwaite and Julie Sawalha. |
John Buchan |
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John Buchan's 100 works include nearly thirty novels and seven collections of short stories. He is best known for The 39 Steps, but my favourite is John Macnab. Many of his other works can be read here. |
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Wilkie Collins |
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Wilkie Collins's novel is credited with being the first "modern" detective story. |
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R.L. Stevenson |
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Probably the most romantic of R.L. Stevenson's novels. I believe a movie
is in the pipeline. Catriona
is the sequel. |
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R.D. Blackmore |
One of English literature's most romantic period novels. A wonderful read! Has been made into a movie several times. |
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Francis Hodgkins Burnett |
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Francis Hodgkins Burnett wrote the greatly loved The Secret Garden, of course, but my favourite after that is probably The Lost Prince (which my children loved). |
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John Buchan |
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John Buchan wrote a large number of adventure/mysteries apart from The Thirtynine Steps, many featuring the same characters. My favourite is John Macnab. |
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The Limberlost stories |
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By Gene Stratton-Porter. As a teenager, I was captivated by these stories. I thought they had long vanished, so was delighted to rediscover them on line. |
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Miscellaneous |
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By Cathy Weisger |
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By Frank R. Stockton |
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Not the same as the traditional fairy tale. |
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Folk tales/fairy stories/children's stories for adults |
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George MacDonald |
C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and others acknowledged George MacDonald as one of their inspirations. He ranked among the top authors of his day, but has fallen out of fashion. These two stories, though, are still classics. (You might need to do some translation if you are reading them to children, who don't seem to have the linguistic skills of previous generations.) |
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The first works of fiction to be included in the Gutenburg Project, which gives you an indication of the importance of these wonderful stories. Did you know that the "Alice" to whom Through the Looking Glass is dedicated is a different Alice from the first book? |
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The
5 Children and IT |
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The classics by E. Nesbit. |
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The Edward Lear classic. |
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The original is considerably darker than the Disney version, as was the case with most Victorian children's literature (including Pinocchio below). |
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Did you know that "Pinocchio" is Italian for "pine-head"? |
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By Hugh Lofting (before Disney and Eddie Murphy ruined it) |
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Winnie-the-Pooh |
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If you have only ever seen the Disney version of A.A. Milne's classic, you have missed a treat. Disney murdered them. Please read them as they were originally written. |
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Other Links |
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A vast collection of women's work. |
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Another vast collection of stories |
 Regency Ring site is owned by John McNeil. |
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