The Life of Charlotte Bronte, by Elizabeth Gaskell. First published in 1857 in two volumes. The version I read, bought gently used, is the 2005 Barnes & Noble Classics edition.I read this book for two reasons: one, I am in the middle of a Bronte project for Owl and Zebra Press, and two, it is on ...
Eighteen hours and eighteen minutes of this felt like so much longer, somehow. And has led to a review-or-whatever-you-want-to-call-this that seems almost as long … And ranty. That might make up for some of the length. And that's one of the reasons for my rating to be three stars instead of two –...
“Mary Barton” by Elizabeth Gaskell had been lying on top of one of my bookshelves for some time At least for 3 years, it remained in the same corner of my book shelf, untouched and unread. I worshipped Gaskell and I would normally never let a work of hers that I possessed, lay unused especially f...
"Cranford" depicts the lives and preoccupations of the inhabitants of a small village - their petty snobberies and appetite for gossip, and their loyal support for each other in times of need. The village is dominated by women, from the kindly spinster Miss Matty, living in genteel poverty with h...
To prime myself for Return to Cranford, the new Masterpiece Classic sequel to last year’s award-winning mini-series Cranford on PBS, I wanted to read Mrs. Gaskell’s original novel that it was adapted from. Since I am always short of reading time, I chose instead to listen to an audio recording, m...
Sort of a Gothic novel, but of the most genteel variety. Ellinor Wilkins is a much-doted-upon daughter of a middle-class attorney. She has a routinely pleasant life, a burgeoning romantic relationship with the local apprentice curate, friends and servants who care for her, and THEN. Something awf...
Dickens once called her his 'darling Scheherazade,' so of course I had to check out Elizabeth Gaskell's "Gothic Tales." Overshadowed in today's literature classes by her contemporaries George Eliot and the Bronte sisters, Gaskell was a popular author in her time. This brilliant collection shows t...
Sylvia's Lovers (1863) is one of Elizabeth Gaskell's later novels, followed only by Cousin Phillis (1864) and my favorite work of hers, Wives and Daughters (1866). Sylvia's Lovers reflects a more mature and sophisticated writing style than her earlier works like Mary Barton, North and South, and...
Miss Mary Smith often visits Cranford. While she provides an outside view of the goings on of this town of "Amazons," she views herself as a true Cranfordian. She usually stays with Deborah and Matty Jenkyns, and later, after Deborah's death, with just Miss Matty. Yet she has been known to stay w...
There had been many conversations in the little sitting-room between the brother and sister and their protegée, which had consisted more of questions betraying a thoughtful wondering kind of ignorance on the part of Ruth, and answers more suggestive than explanatory from Mr Benson; while Miss Ben...
34) Patrick Brontë... County Down in Ireland: For Patrick Brontë’s biography, see John Lock and W T. Dixon, A Man of Sorrow: The Life, Letters and Times of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, 1777-1861 (London: Nelson, 1965), and Barker, The Brontës; see “For Further Reading.”2 (p. 35) military duties which...
I read and read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; of the bright colour of Phillis's hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up t...
Preston was now installed in his new house at Hollingford ; Mr. Sheepshanks having entered into dignified idleness at the house of his married daughter, who lived in the county town. His successor had plunged with energy into all manner of improvements; and, among others, he fell to draining a pi...