Printed in Sydney by S. T. Leigh and Company, circa 1892, this scarce 66pp collection of Christmas stories for children by Beatrice May Hudspeth, of Hobart, Tasmania, is listed for sale at $400 by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne .
The bookshop refers to a review in the Launceston newspaper ,The Tasmanian , November 28 ,1891 :
Miss B. M. Hudspeth, of Hobart, a lady who has already favourably established her name as an acceptable contributor to current Australian literature. The work contains fifteen short stories, into each of which the authoress has imparted a vigour which claims the attention of the readers young and old.
Miss Hudspeth is at her best in passages embodying a vein of that homely pathos which never fails to touch the heart, for the impress of the natural is stamped upon it.
She also possesses the somewhat rare faculty in a writer of telling a story effectively without a preponderance of that descriptive element which, as a rule, tends towards the wearisome .
The 1888-1889 annual report of the Tasmanian Council of Education stated Hudspeth gained a place in the first division of a test for entry to the London University.
Santa CLaus and the Shadow is included in the Marcia Muir collection of Australian children's books at the National Library , which also has a Research Paper by J. L. Skilton on archives of Beatrice May Hudspeth (1867-1932).
(Santa, Tasmania, Books.)
