Wuthering
Expectations

Messing around  in the comments of a Jam & Idleness review  of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford , I amused myself by calling the novel a “do...

The first two ghost stories of the week are “ The Nurse’s Story ” (1852) by Elizabeth Gaskell and “ The Southwest Chamber ” ( 1903 or so ) b...

Given the constraints, North and South is a stunning artistic achievement.  The constraint is that authorial nightmare, weekly serializatio...

In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunn...

Should I spend a few days writing about Elizabeth Gaskell’s mature industrial novel, North and South (1855)?  I fear I did not read it well...

Two questions. 1.  Why did Charles Dickens write A Tale of Two Cities ?  Many reasons, yes.  Imagining the germ of the story, or a charact...

For some reason, I have been claiming that Mary Barton  was published in 1849, which is wrong.  October 1848, that’s the right answer, amids...

Some Mary Barton first sentences: Another year passed on. (Ch. 6) One Sunday afternoon, about three weeks after that mournful night, Jem...

Mary Barton is almost unrelievedly grim through its first half (and not a lot cheerier later).  Unemployment, fires, fevers, alcoholism, dr...

This is "Work" (1852-65) by Ford Madox Brown, available for perusal in the City Art Gallery, Manchester.  Image, with much other ...

Fiction writers are such liars.  That title is from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Preface to her first novel, Mary Barton (1848), a novel at times fa...

Three extra-large Humiliations were crossed off my list: Walden , The Scarlet Letter , and The Flowers of Evil , all highly rewarding.  Let...

"Now, what colour are ash-buds in March?" Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote. "What colour are ...

Cranford was one of three major English novels published in 1853,* along with Bleak House and Villette . Should I add Gaskell's own Ru...

Every now and again I come across someone praising a book or movie because it features a "strong female character." I've never...

Cranford is the story of a group of spinsters and widows in a small town near Manchester. The men in the town - at least those "above ...

Enough complaining. I just finished a book I just loved, beginning to end, top to bottom. It's Cranford (1852-3). I was surprised to fi...

"'Well, Mrs Frank,' he said, 'what answer? Don't make it too long; for I have lots of office work to get through tonigh...

It's not quite true that I'd never read Elizabeth Gaskell before reading Four Short Stories , Pandora Press, 1983. Pretty close, th...

The Incurable Logophile is reading Bleak House , and is surprised to discover that Dickens is funny. Ha ha ha! How could anyone not know th...