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1Wives and Daughters

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

If you like Jane Austen, you will probably like this book!<br /><br />Mrs. Gaskell, as she was often referred to, is considered one of the greatest British novelists of the Victorian era. She was one of the earliest novelists ever to use dialect in her works, finding often that no word but the vernacular would suffice to convey the meaning she wanted to achieve. She was the author of The Life of Charlotte Brontë, a much-acclaimed and sometimes-reviled biography of her friend and peer.<br /><br />Wives and Daughters revolves around Molly Gibson, only daughter of a widowed doctor living in a provincial English town in the 1830s. The novel was first published in the Cornhill Magazine as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866. When Mrs Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section was written by Frederick Greenwood. (Summary from Wikipedia)

2North and South (version 2)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

<i>North and South</i> is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and its conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a socially sensitive lady from the South. The story: the heroine, Margaret Hale, is the daughter of a Nonconformist minister who moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton after leaving the Church of England. The town is modeled after Manchester, where Gaskell lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. The change of lifestyle shocks Margaret, who sympathizes deeply with the poverty of the workers and comes into conflict with John Thornton, the owner of a local mill, also a friend of her father. After an encounter with a group of strikers, in which Margaret attempts to protect Thornton from the violence, he proposes to her, telling her that he is in love with her; she rejects his proposal of marriage, mainly because she sees it as if it were out of obligation for what she had done. Later, he sees her with her fugitive brother, whom he mistakes for another suitor, and this creates further unresolved conflict. Margaret, once she believes she has lost his affection, begins to see him in another light, and eventually they are reunited. (Summary from Wikipedia)

3North and South

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Set in Victorian England, <i>North and South</i> is the story of Margaret Hale, a young woman whose life is turned upside down when her family relocates to northern England. As an outsider from the agricultural south, Margaret is initially shocked by the aggressive northerners of the dirty, smoky industrial town of Milton. But as she adapts to her new home, she defies social conventions with her ready sympathy and defense of the working poor. Her passionate advocacy leads her to repeatedly clash with charismatic mill owner John Thornton over his treatment of his workers. While Margaret denies her growing attraction to him, Thornton agonizes over his foolish passion for her, in spite of their heated disagreements. As tensions mount between them, a violent unionization strike explodes in Milton, leaving everyone to deal with the aftermath in the town and in their personal lives.<br /><br /> Elizabeth Gaskell serialized <i>North and South</i> between September 1854 and January 1855 in Charles Dickens’s magazine <i>Household Words</i>. Upon its publication, Gaskell established herself as a novelist capable of serious discourse on social responsibility and advocacy for change in defiance of established authority. (Summary by Dani)

4Mary Barton

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Mary Barton is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class.<br> The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working class families. John Barton reveals himself to be a great questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relation between the rich and the poor. He also relates how his sister-in-law Esther has disappeared after she ran away from home.<br> Soon afterwards Mrs Barton dies, and John is left with his daughter Mary to cope in the harsh world around them. Having already been deeply affected by the loss of his son Tom at a young age, after the death of his wife, Barton tackles depression and begins to involve himself in the Chartist movement connected with the trade unions. (summary from Wikipedia)

5Ruth

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The book is a social novel, dealing with Victorian views about sin and illegitimacy. It is a surprisingly compassionate portrayal of a 'fallen woman', a type of person normally outcast from respectable society. The title of the novel refers to the main character Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who is seduced and then abandoned by gentleman Henry Bellingham. Ruth, pregnant and alone, is taken in by a minister and his sister. They conceal her single status under the pretense of widowhood in order to protect her child from the social stigma of illegitimacy. Ruth goes on to gain a respectable position in society as a governess, which is threatened by the return of Bellingham and the revelation of her secret. (Wikipedia)

6Cranford

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens.<br /><br /> The fictional town of Cranford is closely modelled on Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs Gaskell knew well. The book has little in the way of plot and is more a series of episodes in the lives of Mary Smith and her friends, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two spinster sisters. The "major" event in the story is the return to Cranford of their long-lost brother, Peter, which in itself is only a minor portion of the work... (Summary by Wikipedia)

7Grey Woman

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

A "Bluebeard" story in which a young woman marries a man whom she discovers has killed his previous wives and is trying to kill her as well. (Summary by Jane Greensmith)

8Life Of Charlotte Brontë Volume 1

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Charlotte Brontë was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Brontë sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all time. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Brontë? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser.<br><br> A recording of <a href="http://librivox.org/the-life-of-charlotte-bronte-volume-2-by-elizabeth-cleghorn-gaskell/" target="_blank">Volume 2</a> of this work is also available.

9House to Let

By Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter

<em>A House to Let</em> is a short story originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' <em>Household Words</em> magazine. Each of the contributors wrote a chapter (stories within a story, or, in the case of Adelaide Anne Procter, poetry) and the story was edited by Dickens, who also wrote the first and last chapters with Wilkie Collins. <br /><br />The plot concerns an elderly woman, Sophonisba, who notices signs of life in a supposedly empty dilapidated house (the eponymous "House to Let") opposite her own, and employs the efforts of an elderly admirer, Jabez Jarber, and her servant, Trottle, to discover what is happening within. (Summary by Ruth Golding and Wikipedia)

10Life Of Charlotte Brontë Volume 2

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Charlotte Bronte was a British author, the eldest of the three famous Bronte sisters who have become standards of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, one of the greatest classics of all times. Just two years after Charlotte's death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography. Want to know more about Charlotte Bronte? If you do, please read this biography. Summary by Stav Nisser.<br><br />Volume One of this biography is available <a href="http://librivox.org/the-life-of-charlotte-bronte-volume-1-by-elizabeth-cleghorn-gaskell/">here</a>

11Sylvia's Lovers

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

The novel begins in the 1790s in the coastal town of Monkshaven. Sylvia Robson lives with her parents on a farm, and is loved by her rather dull Quaker cousin Philip. She, however, meets and falls in love with Charlie Kinraid, a sailor on a whaling vessel, and they become engaged, although few people know of the engagement. But Charlie gets press-ganged and has to leave without a word... (Summary from Wikipedia)

Vertaling van het kerstverhaal van 1858. Het verhaal is geschreven in samenwerking met Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell en Adelaide Anne Procter. <br /><br /> Een oude vrouw, Sophonisba, gaat in Londen wonen. Tegenover haar tijdelijke woning staat een mysterieus huis reeds zeer lange tijd te huur. Een vriend, Jabez Jarber en een knecht, Trottle, proberen het mysterie van het lege huis voor haar te ontraadselen. (Introductie door Marcel Coenders)

13Cousin Phillis

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Cousin Phillis (1864) is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell about Paul Manning, a youth of seventeen who moves to the country and befriends his mother's family and his second cousin Phillis Holman, who is confused by her own placement at the edge of adolescence. Most critics agree that Cousin Phillis is Gaskell's crowning achievement in the short novel. The story is uncomplicated; its virtues are in the manner of its development and telling. (Summary by Wikipedia)

14My Lady Ludlow

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

This novella by the acclaimed Elizabeth Gaskell follows the reminiscences and life of aristocratic Lady Ludlow, told through the eyes of one of her charges, the young Margaret Dawson. Lady Ludlow epitomizes the unwillingness of the old English gentry to accept the progression of social reform and technology, such as education for the poor and religious leniency. She reminisces about her friends in the French revolution and tries to protect and guide the numerous young ladies she has taken under her care. [Summary by Rosie]

15Wives and Daughters (version 2)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel was serialized in Cornhill Magazine from 1864 to 1866, and completed by her editor posthumously. It looks at English life in the 1830s through the experiences of Molly Gibson, the daughter of a widowed doctor growing up in the provincial town of Hollingford. When Mr. Gibson decides to marry again, Molly is forced to contend with a pretentious stepmother, but consoled by a close friendship with Cynthia, her new stepsister. The girls' relations with the local residents, particularly the Squire of Hamley Hall and his family, make for incidents comic, romantic, and tragic, by turns. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

Round the Sofa (1859), is a book of stories by the lady that Charles Dickens called his “dear Scheherazade” due to her skill as a story teller. That Lady was Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South, Wives and Daughters, Cranford etc.). Mrs. Gaskell begins with Round the Sofa, a short story which she uses as a device to stitch together six previously published stories into a single work. It introduces us to a set of characters who take turns to recount stories to one another during their weekly soirée. My Lady Ludlow tells the story of the widowed, aristocratic Lady Ludlow and her fierce resistance to change. It is told through the eyes of one of her young charges. Incidentally, it was one of the books used to create the TV series Cranford. An Accursed Race is actually an essay about a persecuted minority group, the Cagots in Western France. The Doom of the Griffiths. A Gothic short story about a cursed family and set in Wales. Half a Life-Time Ago. A novella set in the Wiltshire Dales. The Poor Clare. A Ghostly short story! The Half Brothers. A sad short story about brotherly love and a sheep-dog dog named Lassie! (Summary by Noel Badrian)

Cranford is set in a small market town populated largely by a number of respectable ladies. It tells of their secrets and foibles, their gossip and their romances as they face the challenges of dealing with new inhabitants to their society and innovations to their settled existence. It was first published between 1851 and 1853 as episodes in Charles Dickens’ Journal Household Words. Appended to this recording is a short sequel, The Cage at Cranford, written ten years later and published in the journal All the Year Round. In a letter to Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Thank you for your letter, it was as pleasant as a quiet chat, as welcome as spring showers, as reviving as a friend’s visit; in short, it was very like a page of Cranford.”... Cranford is a genteel and humorous look at Victorian society by Elizabeth Gaskell, and is quite a change from her more gritty novels like Mary Barton or North and South. (Summary by Noel Badrian)

18Moorland Cottage

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"Maggie Brown is torn between her mother who constantly tells her to live for her selfish brother (to whom she gives all her love) to her wish to marry Frank and live for herself. Maggie's plight for independence shows the change in women's role, which started to take place during that time. But it also keeps to the tradition of an almost Cinderella story: the pure woman does the best for everyone but herself and is rewarded for that. In addition, this is a very interesting story, written in Gaskell's remarkable style. When you read it, you are transported to another time, and place". (Summary by Stav Nisser.)

19Dark Night's Work

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Love, murder and class commentary in Mrs Gaskell's usual brilliant style! This novel was originally serialised and published by Charles Dickens, with whom Mrs Gaskell had several disagreements. She chose to avoid melodrama and concentrate on psychological realism to produce a moving story of people meeting and parting across class divides. - Summary by Beth Thomas

20Wives and Daughters (Dramatic Reading)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Molly and her father have lived alone since the death of her mother. Now Mr Gibson decides it will be in Molly's best interests for him to marry again. The new "Mama" brings to the household many changes, including a glamorous new step-sister. Mrs Gibson starts scheming to have Cynthia marry one of the sons of the local squire, but she does not understand Cynthia's reluctance or why Molly is meeting Mr Preston in the forest. Secrets, love affairs and society gossip abound in this social commentary novel written by Mrs Gaskell (author of North and South and Mary Barton). Love across the class divide, love of parents for children and step-children, love which is a 'heated fancy', love between sisters, and sincere self-sacrificing love of one person for another whether brother or beloved - all are delicately and delightfully drawn in this masterpiece of 19th century literature, and all are brought to life in this dramatic reading with a stunning cast of voices. - Summary by Beth Thomas <BR><BR><b>Cast list:</b><BR> Narrated by: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/13661">Lynette Caulkins</a> and <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6281">Beth Thomas </a><br> Molly Gibson: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6548">K.G.Cross</a><br> Cynthia Kirkpatrick: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6544">Amanda Friday</a><br> Mr Gibson: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9647">Joseph Tabler</a><br> Mrs Gibson/Betty/Frederick Greenwood: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/1259">Elizabeth Klett</a><br> Roger Hamley: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8425">Larry Wilson</a><br> Osborne Hamley: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/7131">Eden Rea-Hedrick</a><br> Squire Hamley: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6974">Michael Armenta</a><br> Mrs Hamley/Miss Pipe/Bethia: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9442">Vanessa Cooley</a><br> Lady Agnes/Martha/Miss Airy/Mrs. Bradley: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9818">Farheen</a><br> Lady Cumnor: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/2607">Ruth Golding</a><br> Lady Harriet Cumnor: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/7679">Libby Gohn</a><br> Lord Cumnor: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8169">tovarisch</a><br> Lord Hollingford/Williams: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8164">Rob Marland</a><br> Dick Hayward: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9572">Ryan Cooley</a><br> Hannah Oakes/Housemaid: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9779">SionedV</a><br> Helen Kirkpatrick/Mrs. Brown/Mrs. Parkes: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8883">Lydia</a><br> Housemaid 2: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9742">Hannah Mather</a><br> Lady Guest: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9936">Heather Masters</a><br> Major Coxe/Old Mr. Silas: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/7170">Alan Mapstone</a><br> Maria: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/3994">Miriam Esther Goldman</a><br> Marie-Aimée Scherer/Mrs. Goodenough/Lady Mary Cuxhaven: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9705">Carol Eades King</a><br> Miss Dorothy Browning: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/7026">Michele Eaton</a><br> Miss Goodenough/Jenny: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8012">Woolly Bee</a><br> Miss Hornblower/Mrs. Dyson: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9732">Gemma L Myers</a><br> Miss Phoebe Browning: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8051">Maria Kasper</a><br> Mr Ashton/Mr.Roscoe/Banker: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9515">DomBombadil</a><br> Mr Coxe: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8582">BeniaminoMassimo</a><br> Mr Hall: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/4705">Algy Pug</a><br> Mr Robert Preston: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/4535">Brett W. Downey</a><br> Mr Sheepshanks/Robinson: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6670">Mike Pelton</a><br> Mr Wynne/Mrs. Dawes: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9775">Alex Lane</a><br> Mrs Kirkpatrick (Cynthia's aunt): <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9860">Dorothy Godfrey-Smith</a><br> Mrs Silas/Dick/Groom/Mr. Kirkpatrick: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8072">Kimberly Krause</a><br> Willie/Grandchild: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/10175">Evie Maria</a><br> Young Master Hamley: <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/10176">Zoe Trang</a><br> : <a href=""></a><br> <b>Audio edited by:</b> <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/5796">Linette Geisel</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6548">K.G.Cross</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/7026">Michele Eaton</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/8842">Mary J</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9759">Kim</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/12506">Bhavya</a>, <a>Mira Williams</a> and <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/14768">VocalPenguin</a> <br> : <a href=""></a><br> <b>Proof Listeners: </b><a href="https://librivox.org/reader/2087">Stav Nisser</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/5796">Linette Geisel</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/6281">Beth Thomas </a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/9517">MaxineMarie</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/11667">Lynda Marie Neilson</a>, <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/14768">VocalPenguin</a>, <a>Mira Williams</a> and <a href="https://librivox.org/reader/12506">Bhavya</a><br>

21North and South (version 3)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

North and South is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North of England. Forced to leave her home in the tranquil rural south, Margaret Hale settles with her parents in Milton where she witnesses the brutal world wrought by the industrial revolution and employers and workers clashing in the first organized strikes. Sympathetic to the poor whose courage and tenacity she admires and among whom she makes friends, she clashes with John Thornton, a cotton mill manufacturer who belongs to the <i>nouveaux riches</i> and whose contemptuous attitude to workers Margaret despises. (Summary from Wikipedia)

Elizabeth Gaskell was a regular contributor to Charles Dickens's weekly magazine, Household Words, from 1850 through to 1853 In addition to three serialized novels, Cranford, North and South, and My Lady Ludlow, Dickens published 18 shorter works by Gaskell, which made her the major literary contributor to the magazine apart from Dickens himself. This collection brings together all of the short stories and non-fiction pieces that Gaskell published in the magazine between 1850 and 1853. Lizzie Leigh and The Heart of John Middleton are examples of Gaskell's writing on the working classes of the industrial north of England, while the Well of Pen Morfa is set in rural North Wales. The Old Nurse's Story, a ghostly tale, and The Squire's Story, a mystery, were written for Christmas editions of the magazine. Appearing in 1853, Morton Hall and My French Master, are among Gaskell's most sophisticated works. Historical fictions of the decline of the aristocracy in England and France, both have happy endings, but deal poignantly with themes of loss and the passage of time. From Gaskell's varied non-fiction pieces, we learn about inexplicable disappearances, the life of an expatriate gardener at the Persian court, the history of the Huguenots, and are invited to a day out on a sheep farm in the far north of England. (Summary by Phil Benson)

23Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (Version 2)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life" was Mrs Gaskell's first full-length novel. It was published anonymously in that tumultuous year of political change, 1848 - only a few months after the Communist Manifesto co-authored by her fellow Manchester-resident, Friedrich Engels. Engels's experience as agent in his father's cotton-spinning factory motivated him to write "The Condition of the Working Class in England", a classic account of the sufferings of the poor under the factory-system. <br /><br /> Elizabeth Gaskell's own personal contact with the plight of the poor cotton workers of Lancashire also compelled her to a compassionate examination of their lives; but as a middle-class woman, married to a Unitarian minister, her approach to her subject took on a more emotionally complex significance; influenced by religious faith but also by more personal considerations. <br /><br /> In the brief preface to the novel, Mrs Gaskell hints at her initial impulse. The loss of a beloved child in infancy led her to seek a therapeutic outlet, but one which left her uncertain of her capacity to contextualize her public, writerly response to the tragedies occurring in the surrounding society of Manchester's poorest classes: "I know nothing of Political Economy, or the theories of trade..." She was, however, determined to portray, in novelistic form, the intimate connection between the private experience of her characters and the social forces of her time. The success of the novel led her to proclaim her authorship and move on to further works of fiction, which have secured her in our times a mounting reputation as one of the leading novelists of the mid-Victorian period. <br /><br /> Certainly the novel features numerous death-scenes, all conveyed with a depth of sympathy that contrasts with the queasy iambics with which Dickens orchestrated the notorious demise of Little Nell. Mrs Gaskell was not, like Dickens, a London-based novelist observing the sufferings of the provincial poor with a journalistic detachment - as evidenced in his own admirable, Lancashire-based novel "Hard Times". Gaskell lived among the people whose attenuated lives she chronicled - and however hesitantly, as a début novelist, she rendered their experience in literary terms, her writing presents us with a true insight into the sufferings of individuals at a point in history when the mass of human beings fell casualty to the forms of economic progress following upon the Industrial Revolution. Most impressively she called into question the political and social cost of creating a resentful proletariat despairing of survival in (to quote Karl Marx) a "heartless world". <br /><br /> Our reader Tony Foster is a resident of Manchester and a near-neighbour of Mrs Gaskell (allowing for their separation in time). His superb narration renders the native speech of her characters with an authenticity which ideally conveys the spirit of this book. A truly moving experience awaits everyone who gives ear to this 'Tale of Manchester Life'. (Summary by Martin Geeson)

It is asserted that the inspiration for Elizabeth Gaskell's marvellous stories of Cranford was her childhood home of Knutsford, a small town in Cheshire and to where she returned for a while as a young woman. This assertion is born out by an essay she wrote in 1849 entitled The Last Generation in England, in which she writes about "The town in which I once resided ...". There can be little doubt when reading this that it provided her with the template for Cranford.<br><br>In 1851 the year she began to write Cranford, she also wrote a novella entitled Mr. Harrison's Confessions. It describes the life of a country doctor in a small provincial town. Mrs. Gaskell's model for this town could also only have been Knutsford which she knew and loved so well. The story revolves around the arrival in the town of a young doctor and the attempts of the ladies of the town to place his status within their society and of course to find him a suitable wife. It is often thought of as a prequel to Cranford<br /><br /> Both of these pieces together with the novels, My Lady Ludlow and Cranford were used by the BBC to create the Television series Cranford in 2007. (Summary by Noel Badrian)

A collection of Elizabeth Gaskell's early short stories. Following the publication of Mary Barton in 1848, Gaskell published many of her short works for Charles Dickens's Household Words magazine between 1850 and 1858. Her earlier works were published in a variety of venues including Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (Sketches among the Poor), William Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places (Clopton Hall), Howitt’s Journal of Literature and Popular Progress (Libbie Marsh, The Sexton's Hero, Christmas Storms and Sunshine), the Sunday School Penny Magazine (Hand and Heart, Bessy’s Troubles at Home), Sartain’s Union Magazine (The Last Generation in England, Martha Preston) and the Ladies Companion and Monthly Magazine (Mrs. Harrison's Confessions). Summary by Phil Benson

Elizabeth Gaskell published 18 short works in Charles Dickens' Household Words between 1850 and 1858. This collection follows the Librivox collection of the 1850-1853 works, with recordings of 7 Household Words pieces published between 1854 and 1858. The collection includes two of Gaskell's most important shorter works: Half a Lifetime Ago, set in the English Lake District, and The Poor Clare, in which the bewitched heroine is pursued by a mischievous double. The Sin of a Father and The Manchester Marriage are both tales with a message. The collection begins with three documentary pieces that emerged from Gaskell's travels in France. (Phil Benson)

In 1859 Charles Dickens launched a new weekly journal, All the Year Round, to replace Household Words. Elizabeth Gaskell remained a prolific contributor until 1863. Her fictional contributions feature strong female characters and have a darker tone than her previous works, reflecting the fashion for Gothic fiction of the 1860s and her travels in Europe. They include two of her best known shorter works: Lois the Witch, a heartfelt story of a young English girl who becomes of a victim of the Salem witch trials, and The Grey Woman, a powerful tale of a deceived wife's flight from her husband, a nobleman who turns out to be a leader of the French 'chauffeurs'. Two of Gaskell's most complex family sagas were thinly disguised as Christmas Ghost stories: The Ghost in the Garden Room (later, The Crooked Branch) and How the First Floor Went to Crowley Castle. The Cage at Cranford is a short reprise of Gaskell's Cranford stories. Of the two documentary pieces, Select Committee on French Songs (attributed to Gaskell in 2015) appears here for the first time in a collection of Elizabeth Gaskell's work. (Phil Benson)

Elizabeth Gaskell was a regular contributor to Dickens's 'Household Worlds' and 'All The Round' until he later years. From 1858 onwards, she also began to publish in other magazines, including 'Harpers New Monthly Magazine', 'The Cornhill Magazine', 'MacMillan's Magazine', 'Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country', and 'Pall Mall Gazette'. This collection brings together her contributions to these publications from 1858 to 1865, the year of Gaskell's untimely death. It includes a number of short fiction and non-fiction pieces. The stand out of the collection is 'The Doom of the Griffiths', which has appeared in a number of collections of Gaskell's later short fiction. (Summary by Phil Benson) Source text (ple

29Sylvia's Lovers (Version 2)

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Sylvia Robson is a beautiful young woman living on a farm in Yorkshire at the end of the 18th century. Many love and are loved by her, most importantly: her parents; their farmhand Kester; her cousin Philip Robson, a shopkeeper in the nearby town of Monkshaven whom Silvia marries; and Charley Kinraid, a whaling harpooner to whom Silvia is secretly engaged before he is pressed into the British navy and mysteriously disappears. The course of true love does not run smooth for Silvia and those who love her. But in the end all find at least some degree of peace.