Wives and Daughters

Name: Wives and Daughters
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: Elizabeth Gaskell
ISBN: 9781452670584

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell

Narrator: Josephine Bailey

Unabridged: 26 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/17/2011

Categories: Fiction, Classic

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

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 stepsister, 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.

About Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) was born in London but grew up in the north of England in the village of Knutsford. In 1832, she married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters and one son who died in infancy. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848 and won the attention of Charles Dickens; most of her later work was published in his journals. Among her notable works are the novels North and South and Cranford, as well as her famous biography The Life of Charlotte Bronte.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ on April 10, 2020

This 1865 novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, who also wrote the lovely North and South, is a pleasant but rather leisurely and lengthy tale of the personalities that inhabit an English country town in about the 1830's. The novel centers around Molly Gibson, the quiet and somewhat passive, but deeply sensit......more

Goodreads review by Katie on October 25, 2018

[Review on second reading] I have no words for how much I love this book and how thoroughly impressed I was on this reread. It is an incredible, beautiful, poignant, subtle novel, and an absolute must-read. [Review on third reading] I have to say this is fast becoming one of my absolute favourite novel......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on May 11, 2016

Do you like fairy tales? Well Gaskell certainly did: "To begin with the old rigmarole of childhood. In a country there was a shire, and in that shire there was a town, and in that town there was a house, and in that house there was a room, and in that room there was a bed, and in that bed there lay a......more

Goodreads review by Lucy on December 19, 2019

Whilst Wives and Daughters isn't my favourite Elizabeth Gaskell, I loved the insight in to 19th century domestic life, especially the customs, relationships and descriptions of rural living. Our heroine, Molly Gibson, is unassuming and quiet, yet has an inner steely determination and steadfast values......more