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charlotekerstenauthor's review against another edition
So What’s It About?
Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell is primarily known for her biography of her close friend Charlotte Brontë as well as her novels, the majority of which are female-led and feature examinations of industrialization and class inequality. She also wrote a number of ghost stories and stories in the Gothic tradition, and several of these are gathered in this collection.
What I Thought
Disappearances -no shade, Mrs. Gaskell, but I have absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be. It’s just a haphazard collection of stories and snippets of stories about people going missing. It’s a cool enough premise but there’s no Victorian Dyatlov Pass in this collection – the stories are incredibly brief and not very interesting or juicy at all.
The Old Nurse’s Story – I read this one for last year’s Spookening as it was a part of The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. It held up this year – old women with regrets and vicious secrets, icy moors, organs playing in the night and a haunted little girl. This collection has a recurring theme of abusive, violent men and the first one makes his appearance here in the form of the ghosts’ murderer, their proud and cruel father and grandfather.
The Squire’s Story- a robber buys a house, gets married and then inexplicably confesses to one of his robberies that ended in a murder. I think this one could have been really good if it had delved into the murderer’s guilty psyche a la Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist, but as it was actually executed that didn’t happen at all so the story fell flat to me.
The Poor Clare – this story involves a witch’s curse, lost love and a young woman’s ghostly doppleganger that everyone says is soooooooo evil but really just seems to like playing pranks and trying to have sex. I guess by Victorian standards is was pretty evil for an unmarried young woman (or female-presenting ghostly doppleganger) to want that… I used to read basically nothing but Victorian literature but I’ve been away from it for a while and this story’s love interest was a reminder of just how utterly boring, spineless and lifeless female characters can be in Victorian lit. It was pretty unbearable.
The Doom of the Griffiths – here we have a family curse, a deeply and annoyingly self-pitying main character, lots and lots of telling rather than showing and another child killed by a vengeful grandfather.
Lois the Witch – I read this book after The Year of the Witching so I already had Puritans on the brain. Gaskell does a great job of depicting colonial New England’s sexual repression, stringent piety and overwhelming emphasis on morality and purity. She also does an excellent job of depicting the hypocrisy, paranoia and panic that lay at the heart of witch hunting. As a final note, Gaskell made some interesting statements about the injustice of what British settlers did to indigenous people in the U.S…while also unfortunately calling the indigenous servant in this story a savage.
The Crooked Branch – a man with doting parents goes wrong and manipulates said doting parents out of all their money before robbing them and breaking their hearts. Did I mention that a lot of stories in this collection were really, really depressing?
Curious, If True – this one features classic fairy tale characters hilariously reinterpreted. It was really fun but also had the worst ending of the bunch because it was so incredibly abrupt.
The Grey Woman – a young woman trapped in an abusive marriage learns a deadly secret about her husband and runs for her life with her beloved nurse. Because of the novel I’m writing I’ve been reading a lot about Victorian conceptualizations of marital abuse and it was actually quite progressive of Gaskell to write a story where a man’s emotional (rather than just physical) abuse was denounced and the woman was portrayed as being in the right for abandoning him. In addition, it was somewhat rare for an abused woman to get anything remotely resembling a happy ending in fiction instead of dying tragically, so the fact that she survives in this story and remarries a kind man was quite progressive too. Her terror endures, however, and I wouldn’t say that the ending of her story is truly happy. Gaskell does a great job of depicting her isolation, fear, helplessness and desperation.
Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell is primarily known for her biography of her close friend Charlotte Brontë as well as her novels, the majority of which are female-led and feature examinations of industrialization and class inequality. She also wrote a number of ghost stories and stories in the Gothic tradition, and several of these are gathered in this collection.
What I Thought
Disappearances -no shade, Mrs. Gaskell, but I have absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be. It’s just a haphazard collection of stories and snippets of stories about people going missing. It’s a cool enough premise but there’s no Victorian Dyatlov Pass in this collection – the stories are incredibly brief and not very interesting or juicy at all.
The Old Nurse’s Story – I read this one for last year’s Spookening as it was a part of The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. It held up this year – old women with regrets and vicious secrets, icy moors, organs playing in the night and a haunted little girl. This collection has a recurring theme of abusive, violent men and the first one makes his appearance here in the form of the ghosts’ murderer, their proud and cruel father and grandfather.
The Squire’s Story- a robber buys a house, gets married and then inexplicably confesses to one of his robberies that ended in a murder. I think this one could have been really good if it had delved into the murderer’s guilty psyche a la Bill Sykes in Oliver Twist, but as it was actually executed that didn’t happen at all so the story fell flat to me.
The Poor Clare – this story involves a witch’s curse, lost love and a young woman’s ghostly doppleganger that everyone says is soooooooo evil but really just seems to like playing pranks and trying to have sex. I guess by Victorian standards is was pretty evil for an unmarried young woman (or female-presenting ghostly doppleganger) to want that… I used to read basically nothing but Victorian literature but I’ve been away from it for a while and this story’s love interest was a reminder of just how utterly boring, spineless and lifeless female characters can be in Victorian lit. It was pretty unbearable.
The Doom of the Griffiths – here we have a family curse, a deeply and annoyingly self-pitying main character, lots and lots of telling rather than showing and another child killed by a vengeful grandfather.
Lois the Witch – I read this book after The Year of the Witching so I already had Puritans on the brain. Gaskell does a great job of depicting colonial New England’s sexual repression, stringent piety and overwhelming emphasis on morality and purity. She also does an excellent job of depicting the hypocrisy, paranoia and panic that lay at the heart of witch hunting. As a final note, Gaskell made some interesting statements about the injustice of what British settlers did to indigenous people in the U.S…while also unfortunately calling the indigenous servant in this story a savage.
The Crooked Branch – a man with doting parents goes wrong and manipulates said doting parents out of all their money before robbing them and breaking their hearts. Did I mention that a lot of stories in this collection were really, really depressing?
Curious, If True – this one features classic fairy tale characters hilariously reinterpreted. It was really fun but also had the worst ending of the bunch because it was so incredibly abrupt.
The Grey Woman – a young woman trapped in an abusive marriage learns a deadly secret about her husband and runs for her life with her beloved nurse. Because of the novel I’m writing I’ve been reading a lot about Victorian conceptualizations of marital abuse and it was actually quite progressive of Gaskell to write a story where a man’s emotional (rather than just physical) abuse was denounced and the woman was portrayed as being in the right for abandoning him. In addition, it was somewhat rare for an abused woman to get anything remotely resembling a happy ending in fiction instead of dying tragically, so the fact that she survives in this story and remarries a kind man was quite progressive too. Her terror endures, however, and I wouldn’t say that the ending of her story is truly happy. Gaskell does a great job of depicting her isolation, fear, helplessness and desperation.
laurenjpegler's review against another edition
3.0
some good stories like lois the witch and the grey woman but some others were quite naff so u win some u lose some
mariagape's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
etakloknok's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
missajackman's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
debjazzergal's review against another edition
3.0
I've read several other titles by this author, and preferred them. There are several strong stories, but the remainder are not so good.
caidyn's review against another edition
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
A pretty average collection of stories. I wish I had liked it better!
circularcubes's review against another edition
4.0
Prior to reading this, I hadn't known much about Elizabeth Gaskell and her work. I'd read North and South some years previously, and had thought of Gaskell whose work touched upon social issues but remained a writer rooted in realism. Luckily, I found this volume, which quickly disabused me of this notion. I adore all things Gothic and creepy - haunted houses, men and women with secrets, curses passing down upon family lines! This book delivered in the full, and is perfect reading for this time of year, when it gets dark earlier, and the cold starts to make the world look unfriendly and harsh.