Wives and Daughters

Much of the fun in Wives And Daughters comes from Gaskell's sprightly characterisation of haughty aristos, honest squires, feckless sons and gossipy old biddiesElizabeth Gaskell's last novel, is regarded by many as her masterpiece. She died mid-sentence so it is just a few pages short of an all-embracing happy ending.In September 2010, the bicentenary of Elizabeth Gaskells birth, she will be commemorated in Westminster Abbey and her name will be added to a stained-glass window alongside memorials to such literary worthies as Christopher Marlowe and Oscar Wilde.Gaskell has come into her own only in the last few years with TV adaptations starring Dame Judi Dench as Cranford's Miss Matty.Elizabeth Gaskell was born on 29 September 1810 in London. She was brought up in Knutsford, Cheshire by her aunt after her mother died when she was two years old. In 1832 she married William Gaskell, who was a Unitarian minister like her father. After their marriage they lived in Manchester with their children. Elizabeth Gaskell published her first novel, Mary Barton, in 1848 to great success. She went on to publish much of her work in Charles Dickens's magazines, Household Words and All the Year Round. Along with short stories and a biography of Charlotte Brontë, she published five more novels including North and South (1855) and Wives and Daughters (1866). Wives and Daughters is unfinished as Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly of heart failure on 12 November 1865.

This tender story of parents, children and step-children, mistakes and secrets was Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel and is considered her masterpiece.

Set in the watchful society of Hollingford, this is a warm tale of love and longing. Molly Gibson is the spirited, loyal daughter of the local doctor. Their peaceful close-knit home is turned upside down when Molly's father decides to remarry. Whilst Molly struggles to adjust to her snobbish stepmother, she forms a close relationship with her glamorous new stepsister Cynthia. The strength of this friendship is soon tested as their lives become entwined with Squire Hamley and his two sons.

‘Gaskell's work will always be one of the adornments of liberal Britain’ Guardian

She was a pioneer, multi-tasking mother... Gaskell's work will always be one of the adornments of liberal BritainMy dear Scheherazade...I am sure your powers of narrative can never be exhausted in a single night, but must be good for at least a thousand nights and oneHer stories are wonderfully funny, but the ridiculous is bathed in a poignant, dreamlike mood found nowhere else in fiction, and profound ideas and strong values sleep beneath everyday details of bonnets and cakesPeople who read her always come away surprised at how modern she sounds. You don't have to think yourself into her century in order to sympathise, since her guiding principle was no more or less than a sense of practical, day-today justice, totally outside the abiding gentleman-lady-peasant-donkey-peasant's wife hierarchy which surrounded herPah! to Dickens. Eat your heart out, Little Nell. That Elizabeth Gaskell could write a death scene to make your socks melt