Elizabeth Gaskell Books

This is an excellent, finely tuned study of Gaskell. It investigates Gaskell as an artist caught up in ambivalent, conflicting goals. When so much work on Gaskell flattens her into an unbridled politico, this book traces the complex relationship between her social intentions and her artistic ones. And it reads all the novels but _Cranford_, including the neglected _Sylvia's Lovers_.

There aren't enough books about Elizabeth Gaskell. D'Albertis has stunningly filled what heretofore had been a Gaskell void. Yea, Dierdre! This sort of scholarship is rarely seen amongst Victorian scholars, particulalrly female ones. Fabulous!

The burgeoning interest in Elizabeth Gaskell has at last produced an author with the cogent prose style and analytical brilliance to match the subject. Brava d'Albertis! It reminds me of the impact of reading Axel's Castle in 1931.

Like Cranford and Wives and Daughters, Cousin Phillis is a variation on the themes that seemed to have preoccupied Elizabeth Gaskell: the changes wrought by mechanization and the different spheres in which men and women live and operate.

When the narrator, then 19, meets Phillis, her physical world is small, contained, and regular, predictably following the seasons as agricultural life does. Her intellectual life, however, is vast. She is comfortable with Latin and the principles of mechanics; she attempts to read Dante in Italian. As Jenny Uglow notes in the foreword, ". . . she does not crave 'independence,' but connection . . . She yearns to use her mind and give her heart." She wants to be a woman.

By contrast, the men around her are reshaping the world with their thought, their inventions, their ambition, and their work. Even the narrator, who admittedly lacks his father's inventive genius and Holdsworth's drive, is doing more than Phillis ever could simply by serving as Holdsworth's assistant.

With her flourishing intellectual curiosity and her growing sexual awareness, it's natural for Phillis to discard the pinafore that represents the restrictions placed on the Victorian woman-child and to desire a man whose tastes, abilities, and drive seem to parallel her own. The result is not surprising. As a woman, her opportunities are limited, while those of the man stretch across two continents and grow greater with each rail laid. It's clear who is destined to be disappointed.

As with the other novels, Gaskell captures a world within her own memory that in many ways had already ceased to exist. The narrator, older and married now, recalls in vivid detail an experience colored by the passage of time and by the changes that have transpired. The bogs, "all over with myrtle and soft moss," could not fail to be altered irrevocably by the railway line, nor could the Hope Farm, with its cozy "house place" and "the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments." Phillis's father learns that she cannot be kept in a pinafore and all that it represents, and the narrator "feared that she would never be what she had been before." No one is.

The narrator leaves us with enticing mysteries. What has prompted him to write about Phillis? What has happened? What does he want to accomplish by telling her story now? What is he trying to recapture? What happened to Phillis? What happened to the Hope Farm and its way of life that he so beautifully recalls and the tenor of which is so effectually altered by events?

Cousin Phillis is a tiny treasure--always evocative, never overwrought. We see Phillis and her natural evolution from child to woman with the narrator's wisdom of maturity and the clarifying, yet softening filters of time. The narrator--and Gaskell--leave Phillis trapped in time, changed, newly aware of the broadness of her desires and of the obstacles she faces, and determined to "go back to the peace of the old days"-- a hope that is nearly impossible to achieve. There is no going back, as Phillis must surely know.

Beautifully described subtlety of feeling against the backdrop of the English countryside just as England, as cousin Phyliss, are about to experience defining changes.

I was told by my sister that I just HAD to see the BBC miniseries "North and South" based on the book by Elizabeth Gaskell. I am here to repeat that advice but also to add that you don't want to stop there! As a big Jane Austen fan, I was surprised and ashamed to find that I had never heard of Elizabeth Gaskell. I really enjoyed her writing--the story behind "North and South" and the characters were excellent. I also learned so much about England during that time that I did not know.

I highly recommend the Norton Critical Edition of "North and South" as well. It provided helpful footnotes throughout the story and interesting letters and analysis following the conclusion of the novel. I also must again recommend the BBC miniseries...it was a fairly true adaptation, and the characters came to life! I really don't think you'll be disappointed either way--book or DVD!

I love the Norton Critical Edition because it contains so many secondary sources; from letters to contemporary criticism! That is useful to get a better understanding of this novel and its author. The footnotes are on the page and not somewhere in the back of the book, so it's a very easy to use edition. I'd recommed it for college use.

Nothing spectacular to write home about. When I bought this book, I was hoping for the old radio dramas that I used to listen to when I was a kid on Sunday nights. I will say that there were some very good stories. But a few left you rather wanting.

I read this book with absolute relish. It's one of the most informative and lively literary biographies I've ever read and it's one I refer to often as I explore the works of Gaskell and the other Victorians in her literary circle. I've not read a better bio of Gaskell and I've read few better bios on any subject. Very highly recommended!

Two thumbs up.... way up. What a breath of fresh air in the normally stale subject matter of european, victorian economics.
I am buying one for everyone on my christmas list (kids love it).

Throughout the two decades from 1964 to 1984, Fontana published a remarkable skein of ghost story collections, piloted by R. Aikman and later by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, no mean supernatural authors themselves. Some of the paperbacks in this series, which winds its way up to the "20th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories" are now collectors' items and worth over a hundred dollars apiece.

For this first book in the series, Robert Aickman selected eleven supernatural tales, including his own "The Trains." He also writes an introduction in which he states, "There are only about thirty or forty first-class ghost stories in the whole of western literature."

That's a challenge indeed, since this complete series contains well over 200 ghost stories!

These are the stories in the Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories:

"The Travelling Grave" by L.P. Hartley--This is definitely one of Aickman's 'first-class ghost stories' and it is funny in the full meaning of the phrase 'hysterically funny.' A man is invited to spend a week-end in the country, arrives late and discovers that his host and the rest of the guests are playing a game of hide-and-seek.

"The Ghost Ship" by Richard Middleton--This story is also humorous, but it lacks the hysterical edge of "The Travelling Grave." A ghostly galleon runs aground in the middle of a turnip field during a violent wind storm. Unfortunately for the peace of a nearby village, the captain and his ghostly crew are very fond of rum.

"Squire Toby's Will" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu--The roistering, hard-living Squire Toby dies, leaving his two sons at each other's throats through the provisions of his will. The younger son inherits, then discovers another will leaving the property to his older brother. While he dithers about what to do with it, the older brother dies. Two mourners enter the mansion but are never seen to leave.

"The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson--A ship becalmed in the Northern Pacific gets a strange visitor. The last line of this story is particularly horrible: "Then the oars were dipped, the boat shot out of the patch of light, and the--the thing went nodding into the mist."

"Three Miles Up" by Elizabeth Jane Howard--The English Canal System has some strange stories told about it, and this is one of the strangest and scariest. Never pick up strangers who want to hitch a ride on your boat, even if she's willing to cook and do the laundry.

"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence--In order to help pay off his parents' debts, a little boy gets racing tips while riding his rocking horse.

"The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood-- This author was a pantheist and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, eventually branching out into Buddhism and Rosicrucianism, and his stories reveal a deep, mystical appreciation of Nature, with a capital 'N.' He spent many summers in the backwoods of Canada and "The Wendigo" is probably the most eerie creation of this idyllic period of his life.

"The Crown Derby Plate" by Marjorie Bowen--Martha Pym is missing one plate from her antique Crown Derby collection. She would do almost anything to complete her set, but when the plate finally falls into her hands, she immediately gives it away. So would you, considering the source.

"The Trains" by Robert Aickman--Two lost hikers on the moors are forced to seek shelter from a rainstorm in a mansion built right over the top of a railroad. MiMi and Margaret learn quite a bit about trains from their host whose grandfather built both the house and the railroad beneath it. A woman seems to be hiding from them in the upper reaches of the house.

"The Old Nurse's Story" by Mrs. Gaskell--Here's an old classic that all ghost story connoisseurs must read at least once. A young orphan and her loving nursemaid must go to live with a distant great-aunt in Northumberland. The five-year-old soon wins over her new relative and the staff of the once-grand mansion, but who is the little girl who keeps begging her to come out and play in the storm?

"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare--A rather unlikeable schoolboy has a repulsive aunt who seems to despise him. This is one of those moody stories where I'm never sure whether ghosts or paranoia got the upper hand.

Amazon was the only place I could obtain this fascinating book from. Worth every penny. Gives you a good insight not only into this brilliant woman's way of life at the time, but everything taking place around her.
An absolute must for any Historians of the 'Victorian' era.

I just love this book. I came across Elizabeth Gaskell after finishing up my Jane Austen re-read marathon. They are both during the same period & the writing is absolutely beautiful. This book is beautiful. The movie is superb but no adaptation ever is better than the original written words. I read the book two times over & I still pick it up in between my current reading to put a smile on my face. Gaskell's short stories are beautiful to read as well. Highly recommended for Victorian Literature lovers!!!

North and South is one of those tasty novels you'll want to set aside an entire weekend to gobble up. And then follow it up not long after by watching the excellent BBC adaptation (although you may do these two things in reverse order-which is what I did, and it by no means lessens the enjoyment of either).

As Wikipedia so tersely states, Elizabeth Gaskell is best known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë. Perhaps this is why I never thought of reading Gaskell's novels, which makes absolutely no sense now that I think about it! North and South takes place in fictional Milton, presumed to be Manchester around the mid 1850s. The tale is told from the perspective of young Margaret Hale from the south of England who moves with her parents to Milton, in the north. She is immediately struck by not only the dreariness of the weather but also of the people, the city, and its surroundings. She longs for warmth, sunshine, wild roses, and the carefree days of idleness she enjoyed in the south. Everyone she meets in Milton, including her father's favorite pupil Mr Thornton, seems to grate against her southern values, seeming to care only about time and money wasted.

As the story progresses, we see Margaret suffer through many changes, both circumstantial and psychological. Her experiences with the poor and the industrial ruling classes make her rethink her preconceived ideas about Milton and its people. Many call it a social novel, providing insight to ideas at the time on religion, class, and gender. However, at heart North and South is a romance, and straight to your heart it will go. The characters are beautifully portrayed and the story hums along at a nice rate for a book of its length. Now my only regret is not having discovered this gem earlier.