Cousin Phillis [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (Author), 1stWorld Library (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2005

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance in the new course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk under the engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he was born and bred; for he was raising himself every year in men's consideration and respect. He was a mechanic by trade, but he had some inventive genius, and a great deal of perseverance, and had devised several valuable improvements in railway machinery. He did not do this for profit, though, as was reasonable, what came in the natural course of things was acceptable; he worked out his ideas, because, as he said, 'until he could put them into shape, they plagued him by night and by day.' But this is enough about my dear father; it is a good thing for a country where there are many like him. He was a sturdy Independent by descent and conviction; and this it was, I believe, which made him place me in the lodgings at the pastry-cook's.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 140 pages
• Publisher: 1st World Library - Literary Society (October 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421809273
• ISBN-13: 978-1421809274
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,104,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I Enjoyed This Story But....., July 20, 2009

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19th century brit lit fan (GA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cousin Phillis (Paperback)

I felt it could have been more developed. I would have liked to have seen this as a novel instead of a small novella or a large short story.

The theme of her story was there-that in general, women love longer and are more loyal, whereas men tend to be more fickle, as a passage of time tends to cause them to forget.

I understood that, but I felt this could have been more developed. I was also left, wanting to know more of what happened to the heroine.

It is a good read, but I believe most would feel more satisfied if they bought this little novella/short story in a book that had a collection of Mrs. Gaskell's short stories in which this was one of several.