Customer Reviews (1)

We're Not in Cranford Anymore
Just in time for Halloween, I stumbled upon Elizabeth Gaskell's short stories of the macabre while reading the more traditional novella "My Lady Ludlow" My Lady Ludlow and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics). I liked them so much, I requested her "Tales of Mystery and Horror" from my local library. In short, Mrs. Gaskell switches effortlessly from her better-known Victorian works of comedy and social satire to more supernatural themes of witches and curses. Sometimes, the stories may be a bit predictable in their ultimate conclusions, but still they are thoroughly engaging in their attention to atmosphere and nuance, especially on a dark and stormy night. ... Read more

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Tracing the publishing history of Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" from its initial 1851-53 serialization in Dickens' "Household Words" through its numerous editions and adaptations, Thomas Recchio focuses especially on how the text has been deployed to support ideas related to nation and national identity. Recchio maps Cranford's nineteenth-century reception in Britain and the United States, illustrated editions in England and the United States dating from 1864, US school editions in the first two decades of the twentieth-century, dramatic adaptations from 1899 to 2007, and Anglo-American literary criticism in the latter half of the twentieth-century. Making extensive use of primary materials, Recchio considers "Cranford" within the context of the Victorian periodical press, contemporary reviews, theories of text and word relationships in illustrated books, community theater, and digital media.In addition to being a detailed publishing history that emphasizes the material forms of the book and its adaptations, Recchio's book is a narrative of Cranford's evolution from an auto-ethnography of a receding mid-Victorian English way of life to a novel that was deployed as a maternal model to define an American sensibility for early twentieth-century Mediterranean and Eastern European immigrants. While focusing on one novel, Recchio offers a convincing micro-history of the way English literature was positioned in England and the United States to support an Anglo-centric cultural project, to resist the emergence of multicultural societies, and to ensure an unchanging notion of a stable English culture on both sides of the Atlantic. ... Read more

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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1859Original Publisher: S. Low, son ... Read more

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This absorbing study of Elizabeth Gaskell's early life up to her marriage in 1832 is based almost entirely on new evidence. Also, using parish records, marriage settlements, property transfers, wills, record office documents, letters, journals and private papers, John Chapple has recreated the background of one of the nineteenth century's greatest novelists. The widely differing lives of her father, brother and the aunt who raised her are illuminated at length by these original documents. Chapple has discovered a number of letters written by close relations that shed new light on her upbringing, and he analyses three hitherto unknown travel journals by her Knutsford cousins which prove that she grew up in a literary milieu. Other biographical accounts of Elizabeth Gaskell's life have been compared and, where necessary, corrected, but Chapple's main emphasis lies with the wealth of new material that he has discovered. This ensures that "The Early Years" will provide a secure basis for future criticism of her creative works, which so often rely on biographical details. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Elizabeth Gaskell
I see I'm the first person to review this book, and I can understand why. No one else has read it. That's because it's almost unreadable. The type is very small. The author cannot have omitted a single scrap of his copious research. His selection skills need honing. People with only remote connections to EG, and many with no connection at all, are discussed in tedious detail.

This book is definitely not for the common reader. The details may interest other scholars, and the author is probably justifiably proud of all the new facts he's unearthed, but these do not make for compelling, or even interesting, reading by ordinary fans of literary biographies. ... Read more

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North and South. please visit www.valdebooks.com for a full list of titles ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 2; Original Publisher: London : Chapman and Hall; Publication date: 1855; Subjects: English fiction; Fiction / Classics; ... Read more

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In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked fearful self, so like me my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of body it belonged... Elizabeth Gaskell is better known today for her pioneering social novels such as Mary Barton (1848) but she also wrote some fascinating tales of the supernatural and the macabre, which are collected here in this volume. The real charm of this dark anthology is its variety. Unlike so many writers of this kind of material, Gaskell allows the story to fit the style rather than the other way around and as result there is a charming freshness to each tale. This remarkable author uses different voices, tones and topics to engage her readers and as you turn from one story to the next you cannot be quite sure what to expect. ... Read more

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This Elizabeth Glaskell story recounts the daily lives of the widowed Lady Ludlow of Hanbury and the spinster Miss Galindo, and their caring for other single women and girls. It is also concerned with Lady Ludlow's man of business, Mr Horner, and a poacher's son named Harry Gregson whose education he provides for. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Good resource
This book is a good and accessible resource on the life of Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. The editor, J.A.V. Chapple is also one of the editors of the full collection of Gaskell's correspondence: The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell. However, that collection is not surprisingly very long and prohibitively expensive for the general reader.

This book, A Portrait in Letters, is available at a reasonable price and is short enough to read all the way through. The book is arranged by subjects relevant to Gaskell's life, and it includes excerpts from Gaskell's letters along with editorial comments from Chapple that add context.

While serious Gaskell scholars will want to consult the complete Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, this volume is perfect for the general reader, and it serves as a helpful compilation of the most famous and frequently-cited of Gaskell's letters. ... Read more

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This chronology sets Elizabeth Gaskell in her historical, social and literary contexts. It focuses on her career as a writer but also underlines her interactive roles as wife, mother, practical and tolerant Christian, radical sympathizer. Graham Handley discusses her early life, her marriage, the beginnings of her writing, the years of achievement, her social, humanitarian concerns, love of travel and its influence, with the balance of domesticity and creativity which is the key to her character.
... Read more

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This collection includes: An Accursed Race, The Doom of the Griffiths, Half a Life-Time Ago, The Half-Brothers, Lizzie Leigh, The Poor Clare, and Round the Sofa ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Books such as Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South and Wives and Daughters continually analyse and interrogate questions of power, authority and the expjression and transmission of human values, and challenge many widely-held pre-conceptions of the age. Dr Flint shows how recent feminist criticism and theories of narrative work together to illuminate the radical and experimental nature of Mrs Gaskell's fiction. ... Read more

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Elizabeth Gaskell's Use of Color in Her Industrial Novels and Short Stories presents Gaskell's incorporation of Ruskin's moral theory of color to set the tone in her tales as she illustrates the dreary, monotonous existence of nineteenth century industrial workers. Wildt demonstrates the use of various shades, tints, and hues of color to set moral tone, express character feelings, and to foreshadow events as Gaskell establishes and sustains mood in her short stories, and to a greater extent, in her industrial novels. She points out the use of color for foreshadowing events, expressing character's feelings in defining character in "Mary Barton, North and South," and "Ruth". Focusing on Gaskell's repeated use of the storm cloud motif, Wildt notes its presence on physical and emotional levels to illustrate the bleakness of the trapped condition of working women in the mid-nineteenth century, and that it anticipates Ruskin's future use of "The Storm Cloud." ... Read more