Serials
Lots of Mary Grant Bruce’s longer stories were serials when first published. They mainly appeared in The Leader (Melbourne), the weekend newspaper that was read all over Victoria. It was the counterpart to The Age, which ran from Monday to Friday, and had only city circulation.
Mary was ‘Cinderella’ at The Leader, as the writer of their page “The Children’s Column” was always known. It carried all her earliest serials. Starting with A New Year’s Dawn in 1904, she also had stories in the adult literature section, “Tales and Sketches”. Interestingly, three of her ‘Billabong’ serials appeared there.
Book publishers later used ten of these serials, sometimes with substantial re-writing. A New Year’s Dawn was the basis for a story 33 years later in the prestigious Blackwood’s Magazine.
| Title | Section | First Issue | Final Issue | Republished as |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Little Bush Maid | The Children's Column | 7 October 1905 | 17 August 1907 | A Little Bush Maid (1910) |
| A New Year's Dawn | Tales and Sketches | 2 January 1904 | 16 January 1904 | A Rider of the Sixties (1937) |
| Dick's Schooldays | The Children's Column | 24 July 1909 | 22 October 1910 | Dick (part) (1918) |
| Dick | The Children's Column | 7 March 1908 | 6 March 1909 | Dick (part) (1918) |
| From Billabong to the War | Tales and Sketches | 2 October 1915 | 1916 | From Billabong to London (1915) |
| Glen Eyre | Tales and Sketches | 23 March 1912 | 3 August 1912 | Glen Eyre (1912) |
| Jim and Wally | Tales and Sketches | 2 September 1916 | 1917 | Jim and Wally (1916) |
| Mates at Billabong | The Children's Column | 28 January 1911 | 7 September 1912 | Mates at Billabong (1911) |
| Norah of Billabong | Tales and Sketches | To be advised | To be advised | Norah of Billabong (1913) |
| Ragamuffins | The Children's Column | 12 October 1901 | 1 November 1902 | Not republished |
| The Adventures of Timothy | The Children's Column | 10 January 1903 | 19 December 1903 | Timothy in Bushland (1912) |
| The Interlopers | The Children's Column | 23 January 1904 | 12 October 1905 | Gray’s Hollow (1914) |
Please Note: We have only shown here “substantial” serials, meaning they ran over at least three issues. Or they were far longer than Mary’s other, shorter, stories. Several works listed in our Short Stories section actually ran over two issues in their periodical of publication.
Another serial, which has not yet been republished, is ‘Wing Ho, of China‘. It appeared in issues of Woman’s World from March to October 1926.
The Trustee of The Mary Grant Bruce Family Trust owns the extant copyrights to her works listed on this page. All are under copyright in Australia.