Australian Christmas Tales
Australian Christmas stories were an early specialty for Mary Grant Bruce. She was responsible for the weekly Children’s Corner section of The Leader newspaper for fifteen years.
Mary Grant Bruce also usually wrote one or more special short stories for the Christmas edition. Some tales were just for children. And she wrote yarns for adults as well. She left The Leader after her career as a novelist took off. More of her Christmas stories were published in later years, though.
The overall result is a considerable body of works, including many real gems. Almost all of them have a distinctively Australian flavour, as well might be expected from this most Australian of authors.
Some of these stories are in these currently-available anthologies:
- Seventeen are in Australian Christmas Stories (2022) hardcover book and audiobook formats
- Six of the above stories are in Australian Christmas Yarns, Volume I (2020) ebook and audiobook
- A further eight of them are in Australian Christmas Yarns, Volume II (2022) audiobook
- Dono’s Christmas and Her Little Lad appear in Mary Grant Bruce: The Early Tales (2011) paperback
The remaining stories
Unless stated otherwise, these stories were all first published in The Leader:
A Christmas Cinderella
A Christmas Fairy Tale
A Gift Exchange
A Pantomime Princess
Behind the Scenes
Brother Santa Claus
How Grandfather Woke Up
Miranda Jane’s Christmas
On Christmas Stockings
Scared of Santa Claus
The Queerest Christmas, published in Woman’s World, December 1926
To Find Christmas, published in The Southern Sphere, November 1910
Truants
War and Christmas
Winton’s Christmas
The Trustee of The Mary Grant Bruce Family Trust owns the extant copyrights on Mary Grant Bruce’s short stories.