With an Introduction and Notes by Professor Emeritus John Chapple, University of Hull
The sheer variety and accomplishment of Elizabeth Gaskell's shorter fiction is amazing. This new volume con- tains six of her finest stories that have been selected specif- ically to demonstrate this, and to trace the development of her art.
As diverse in setting as in subject matter, these tales move from the gentle comedy of life in a small English country town in Dr Harrison's Confessions to atmospheric horror in far north-west Wales with The Doom of the Griffiths. The story of Cousin Phillis, her masterly tale of love and loss, is a subtle, complex and perceptive analysis of changes in English national life during an industrial age, while the gripping Lois the Witch r…