Wives and Daughters [Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (Author), Nadia May (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2002 | ISBN-10: 0786123206 | ISBN-13: 978-0786123209 | Edition: Unabridged

1865 novel from the English novelist and short story writer, whose writings can be seen as critiques of Victorian era attitudes, particularly those toward women, with complex narratives and dynamic women characters.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published serially in the Cornhill Magazine (August 1864-January 1866) and then in book form in 1866; it was unfinished at the time of her death in November 1865. Known as her last, longest, and perhaps finest work, it concerns the interlocking fortunes of several families in the country town of Hollingford. Wives and Daughters chronicles the maturation of Molly Gibson, a sincere young woman whose widowed father, the town doctor, marries Hyacinth Kirkpatrick, a charming but petty widow and former governess in the household of Lord Cumnor. Although Molly resents her stepmother, she befriends her stepsister Cynthia, who is secretly engaged to Lord Cumnor's land agent, Mr. Preston. Molly is warmly received at the home of Squire Hamley and his disabled wife. The Hamleys' two sons are Osborne, a clever but shallow man who marries unwisely and dies young, and Roger, an honest scientist who eventually marries Molly after being engaged to Cynthia, who ultimately weds a London barrister. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Elizabeth Gaskell was born in London in 1810 but spent most of her life in Cheshire, Stratford-upon-Avon. She married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters by him. She worked among the poor, travelled frequently and wrote for Dickens'smagazine, Household Words. Elizabeth Gaskell was friends with Charlotte Bronte and consequently went on to write her biography. Pam Norris is Reader in Literature at Liverpool John Mooores University --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786123206
• ISBN-13: 978-0786123209
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,900,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( G ) > Gaskell, Elizabeth

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing domestic comedy, June 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wives and Daughters (The Penguin English Library) (Mass Market Paperback)

In her last novel, Gaskell avoided her usual urban milieu to concentrate instead on the wonderful parochial doings of a country village in the mid-Victorian period. Although she left the novel without its very last chapter before she died, this should not dissuade you from reading the novel: you'll know by the end exactly where Gaskell was going to finish the book and what would've happened to all the characters.

WIVES AND DAUGHTERS is frequently compared to Austen, but it is very different; the comedy and social observation is marvelous, but there's a greater sense of despair here more akin to MIDDLEMARCH. Hyacinth is without question the single most complex and engrossing character Gaskell ever created, and despite her menadacity and her manipulativeness you can't help but feel fond of her in spite of her less attractive qualities. Her daughter Cynthia is nearly as fine a character, and the others are also topnotch. A delightful read.

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ...and dream about Cynthia and my new shawl, May 6, 2005

By 

Snork Maiden - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wives and Daughters : An Every-Day Story (Everyman's Library) (Paperback)

What is up with all the reviews that compare Mrs. Gaskell unfavorably to Jane Austen? Jane Austen is wonderful, but she works in miniature, and even her major characters are often one-dimensional. Who can really visualize Mr. Darcy? It is true that Mrs. Gaskell can be as satirical as Austen when she wants to be, but even her most vain or vicious characters are human beings, with complex feelings and good impulses as well as bad. And then there's the incredible sweep of this novel, the way in which Gaskell manages to portray an entire community without losing her lightness of touch. The only novel I can think of to compare this to is Eliot's Middlemarch, and I'm still not sure which I think is better.

There are so many instances in which Gaskell could have taken the easy way out and didn't. Take the two pairs of characters, Molly and Cynthia and Roger and Osborne. Osborne is thought to be more brilliant than Roger; Cynthia is more beautiful and less moral than Molly. It would be so easy for Gaskell to make Cynthia the evil stepsister, and Osborne the dissolute brother you love to hate. Yet Cynthia and Osborne are both sympathetic despite their faults, and both are even more complex, more finely drawn, than Roger and Molly. There are plenty of novels in which a character exerts a fascination over everyone he/she meets, and usually the fascination is completely lost on the reader. Cynthia has this fascination, and for once it is completely convincing. We understand why Molly can't help loving Cynthia, even while Cynthia is blithely taking Roger away from her. And Cynthia is self-aware; she knows that she can't bear to have people not think well of her, and she knows this is a fault. When Molly has learned Cynthia's secret and risked her own reputation to help her, Cynthia is grateful but cannot keep herself from doing what she always does and drawing away from Molly. Mrs. Kirkpatrick is another beautifully drawn character -- she seems poised at the beginning to become the evil stepmother from a fairy tale, but she is simply weak, vain, and not very bright. She has every intention of being a wonderful stepmother, but she is too shallow and self-centered to enter into Molly's feelings or any one else's. She tries so hard to please, and her panics when she's talked herself into a corner are both funny and pathetic.

I know I've said a lot about Cynthia, but I don't agree with the reviewer who said that Molly seemed one-dimensional in comparison. Molly has fewer problems; she's a pretty normal, intelligent, awkward girl with a happy childhood behind her, but that doesn't mean she's boring. She has a pretty vivid emotional life, although she doesn't always admit the source of her feelings, and she's very shrewd.

I am amazed by the people who said this book needed editing or cutting down. This is probably the most nearly perfect book I have read - I do not mean by this that it is the best - and the one glaring imperfection can't be helped. I do think, though, that if it has to end prematurely at least it ends on an excellent sentence.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A definite read if you enjoy the genre as I do, February 15, 2006

By 

Austentatious "Amy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wives and Daughters (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Having read and reread Austen and the Bronte sisters, and looking to branch out to new authors while still staying in the general time period and genre, my sister recommended Wives and Daughters. I had never heard of Elizabeth Gaskell---but what a treasure to discover! My husband bought me the book for my birthday, worried that because it was an unfinished novel I would be disappointed. Hardly! I couldn't put the book down. I fell in love with all of Hollingford and its people, especially young Molly Gibson, as constant in her character as Cynthia is changeable but both equally likeable and more importantly, believable. Mrs. Gaskell was able to show us where the novel was headed or, I should say, where Molly was headed matrimonially, and though it is something to mourn that the conclusion could not be written in Mrs. Gaskell's own words, I would still recommend the read. AND the DVD which is so true to the book (Justine Waddell makes a perfect Molly), even while leaving out Molly's extended illness toward the end. Definitely one I recommend.