Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Author
Language
English
Description
For Paul Manning, one of the undeniable charms of the countryside is his beautiful yet naive cousin Phillis. But, when Paul finds himself uncomfortably implicated in the romantic drama that unfolds between Phillis and his sophisticated colleague, country life suddenly becomes not quite the simple and artless pleasure it once was.
Author
Language
English
Description
Originally written for Charles Dickens' Household Words magazine, The Poor Clare is a dark, gothic short novel of thwarted love and a family curse that vividly illustrates the social tensions of Victorian England. The intentional killing of a woman's dog unleashes a torrent of rage. In her desire for revenge, the woman curses the dog's killer: All that the murderer loves most, he will lose. This haunting tale brilliantly demonstrates Elizabeth Gaskell's...
Author
Language
English
Description
The narrator - the old nurse of the title - is an old family retainer who has worked in the service of the same family for three generations. She tells the young children about a dark incident that she experienced in the company of the children's mother, when she was a young woman and visiting her mother's ancestral home.
This story hits all the marks of a classic ghost story: an isolated manor, creepy music sounding from a disused organ, ghostly...
Author
Language
English
Description
North and South tells the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner newly settled in the northern industrial town of Milton, whose ready sympathy with the discontented millworkers sits uneasily with her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. The novel poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience, ranging from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny and industrial action. Margaret's...
6) Cranford
Author
Language
English
Description
Presents the classic story by nineteenth-century English author Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell that reflects of lives of a group of spinsters and widows as they struggle to maintain their middle-class standards within an ever-changing society.
7) Mary Barton
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
The first novel by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton was published in 1848. It tells of the plight of the lower class in Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s. Contrasting the gap between rich and poor, the first half of the novel tells of the humble lives of the Barton and Wilson families, the extreme poverty of the Davenports and the luxurious life of the Carsons. Symbolically, John Barton receives five shillings for selling
...Author
Language
English
Description
Mary Barton, the daughter of a disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill-owner's son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men.
13) Cranford
Language
English
Description
Cranford, in 1842, is a market town in northwest England. It is a place governed by etiquette, custom and above all, an intricate network of ladies. It seems that life has always been conducted according to their social rules. For spinsters Deborah Jenkyns, the arbiter of correctness, and Matty, her dumurring sister, the town is a hub of intrigue. Handsome new doctor Frank Harrison has arrived from London; a retired Captain and his daughters move...
14) North & South
Language
English
Description
Based on Elizabeth Gaskell's classic Victorian love story. Independent-minded Margaret Hale moves with her parents to Milton, a manufacturing city in England's north. Compared to the bucolic south where she was raised, Milton stifles Margaret with industrial smoke and soot, and she takes an instant dislike to John Thornton, the ambitious and severe mill owner. But amid a workers₂ strike and family misfortunes, Margaret begins to reconsider her sentiments....
Language
English
Description
Set in a richly portrayed society well-stocked with eccentric nobles and gossipy villagers, this story centers around 17-year-old Molly Gibson, the only daughter of a respected country doctor. The well-ordered world of Molly's childhood is soon to be complicated by new people and unexpected situations. Most devastating is her father's decision to remarry after many years of widowhood. Molly's faltering efforts to cope gracefully with an impossible...
Language
English
Description
Miss Matty's house is full of life and bustle. Her dream of having a child in the house has been realized in the birth of Tilly, daughter of her maid Martha and carpenter Jem. Elsewhere, the shadow of the railway still looms, but the line has been halted five miles outside Cranford, a disaster as far as Captain Brown is concerned. Meanwhile, as Mr. Buxton returns to town with his son, William, and his niece, Erminia, Miss Matty becomes concerned about...
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"As railroads, industry, cities, and technology flourished in the mid-nineteenth century, so did stories exploring the horrors they unleashed. This anthology includes ghost stories and tales of haunted houses, as well as mad scientists, werewolves, ancient curses, mummies, psychological terrors, demonic dimensions, and even weird westerns." --provided by publisher.