Synopses & Reviews
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel, is regarded by many as her masterpiece. Molly Gibson is the daughter of the doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford. Her widowed father marries a second time to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks, but until the arrival of Cynthia, her dazzling step-sister, Molly finds her situation hard to accept. Intertwined with the story of the Gibsons is that of Squire Hamley and his two sons; as Molly grows up and falls in love she learns to judge people for what they are, not what they seem. Through Molly's observations the hierarchies, social values, and social changes of early nineteenth-century English life are made vivid in a novel that is timeless in its representation of human relationships. This edition, the first to be based in the original Cornhill Magazine serialization of 1864-6, draws on a full collation of the manuscript to present the most accurate text so far available.
Review
"A superb edition Easson's notes are well done genuinely helpful and the supporting scholarly materials (introduction, textual variants, bibliography) are also valuable." Dr. C. J. Walsh, St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill
Review
"A useful introduction and notes. Will use it on a course concerned with the relationships between thought and history through an analysis of rural society." W. J. Gregory, Newcastle Polytechnic
Synopsis
Wives and Daughters is Gaskell's
last, and unfinished novel, thought by many to be her masterpiece.
Gaskell died before the final episode of the novel had been written.
Her editor, Frederic Greenwood, using all the indications she had left
for its ending, completed the last few pages for her, and these are
reprinted here.