Showing results by author "Elizabeth Gaskell" in All Categories

In this original collection from Skyboat Media and Blackstone Publishing, Elizabeth Gaskell showcases the height of gothic fiction's ability to delight in the otherworldly and to dig deep into what truly haunts us. Set against the backdrop of the Salem witch trials, "Lois the Witch" reveals much about the complicity of mankind. Recently orphaned, Lois is forced to leave the English parsonage that had been her home and sail to America.

Lady Ludlow's appalling snobbery, prejudice and bred-in-the-bone conviction as to the superiority of the English aristocracy and their feudal way of life are deliciously tested, and found wanting, in this gently radical tale of the collapse of a social system. Elizabeth Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow is a brilliant picture of the shift in power in a rural northern village, from the velvety feudal Ludlows to the glitter of the new money rattling through the system courtesy of the brazen baker from Birmingham.

When her father remarries, the honest, innocent Molly Gibson suddenly finds herself with a new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, worldly and impetuous. This would be more than enough to deal with, but the new wife is the deeply snobbish (and darkly secretive) Hyacinth. Thwarted love, scheming ambition and small-town gossip underlie the warmth, irony and brilliant social observation which link the relationships and the inevitable conflicts as profound change comes to rural England.

Almost always when we think of Ghost Stories, we first think of those written by the Victorians. If you want a really good ghost story to bring that edge of chill, that foreboding of dread, that feeling that in an empty house we are not quite alone and that sometimes the sharp, sheer shock of what just happened is upon us then look no further than ‘The Victorian Ghost Story’ for your reading and listening pleasure.

Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.

Cousin Phillis – a miniature masterpiece – is set in the 1840s, when the coming of the railway was changing the face of England, and quiet rural communities, coming into contact with the outside world, were changed forever. The story focuses on the effect these changes have on a naïve country girl, Phillis, as she encounters love, with all its pains and pleasures, for the first time.

Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centres on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new stepsister, Cynthia, enters Molly's quiet life. Loveable but worldly and troubling, Cynthia's arrival alters Molly's daily life. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford.

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 understanding of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants and the harsh realities of class society.

This is the story of Margaret Hale, a young English woman who accompanies her family's move from rural southern England to the industrial north. It proves to be a difficult change, with all the attendant social conflicts and cultural misunderstandings consequent to such situations. It is a study in contrasts. Mrs. Gaskell created one of the Victorian era's greatest heroines in Margaret Hale, a young lady of passionate intensity.

When Margaret Hale moves with her father from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance and one of Elizabeth Gaskell's finest works.

Elizabeth Gaskell's novella The Moorland Cottage takes place near the town of Combehurst where Mrs. Browne lives with her children, Edward and Maggie, and their servant, Nancy. Near the Brownes' cottage lives the Bruxton family in a luxurious mansion. The two families grow closer with time and the author shows how childhood education and growing up shape and effect the adult personality.

Christmas is the perfect time to curl up with a good story, and this cracking collection brings you 30 wonderfully diverse tales inspired by this most special of seasons. From Santa Claus, gift-giving and family gatherings, to an unexpected encounter in a snowstorm and an alternative take on the Nativity, they're sure to get you in the festive mood.

Included in this collection: "Who Killed Zebedee" by Wilkie Collins, read by Sean Barrett; "Blue Suit" by Edgar Wallace, read by Paul Panting; "A Mysterious Case" by Anna Katharine Green, read by Liza Ross; "The Crooked Man" by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Stephen Thorne; "Vendetta" by Guy de Maupassant, read by Liza Ross; "The Sapient Monkey" by Headon Hill, read by Paul Panting; and more....

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.

North and South follows the young Margaret Hale as she is caught in the middle of the brutal world between employers and local workers following the Industrial Revolution. She finds herself at odds from the very start with John Thornton, a local factory owner and self-made man, as she believes him to be unfeeling and callous about the poverty and suffering of the workers while John sees Margaret as haughty and entitled. Further conflicts arise when the workers strike and Margaret feels compelled to intervene with no regard for her own safety.

Whilst writer Charles Dickens needs no introduction, his Haunted House anthology might, not least because in his role as editor he introduces a formidable array of known and lesser-known literary talents.

The novel provides insight and a bit of satire regarding the everyday humdrum in small towns. Cranford is separated into 16 chapters, opening with a snapshot of Captain Brown and his two daughters who live in the book's namesake town: Cranford. The gossipy women of the town are slow to accept Brown socially, but they eventually welcome him into their circles. Captain Brown is later injured, and the responsibility of the house falls on his younger daughter.

Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young woman discovering herself, in a nuanced portrayal of what divides people, and what brings them together.

Elizabeth Gaskell, famed authour of Cranforn, is cherished for her incise social observations and portrayals of the changing nature of English life through the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era. Mr. Harrison's Confessions is a warm, funny portrait of life in a small English town. Narrated by the young Doctor Harrison, we follow his practice and his courting in this charming tale.

On Christmas Eve, a party of friends descends on a purportedly haunted country retreat, charged with the task of discovering evidence of the supernatural. Sequestered in their rooms for the holiday, the friends reconvene on Twelfth Night at a great feast and share their stories of spectral encounters.