Audiobook · read by volunteers
Wives and Daughters
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865)
Read by Mary Anderson, Ophelia Darcy, Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Sibella Denton, Caitlin Kelly, Brenda Dayne, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), rachelellen, Lizzie Driver, Tora · 61 chapters · 27 h 15
About the book
Molly Gibson is a motherless girl growing up in a small English town, brought up by her father, the local doctor. When he marries again, she acquires a stepmother of doubtful sincerity and a stepsister, the dazzlingly pretty Cynthia, who will become the dearest and most troubling friend of her life. Around them move the families of the great house, two brothers of very different temperaments, village gossips and neighbours with long memories.
Elizabeth Gaskell’s last novel, left unfinished at her death, is a warm, funny and perceptive portrait of English provincial life in the years before the great Reform Bill. Readers who enjoy Jane Austen will feel at home. In sixty-one sections and over twenty-seven hours, this recording offers a leisurely pleasure for anyone who relishes character, conversation and the small comedies of daily life.
Introduction
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865), often called Mrs Gaskell, is counted among the major Victorian novelists. She was among the first to let her characters speak in dialect, and she wrote about industrial life, as in Mary Barton and North and South, as well as about quiet provincial communities, as in Cranford. She was also the author of a well-known biography of Charlotte Brontë, who was her friend.
Wives and Daughters was published in serial form in a magazine from 1864, with the book edition following in 1866. Gaskell died in 1865 before she could finish it, and the last chapter was never written, although the story was close to its end. Even so, many readers regard the novel as her masterpiece. It is set in the years before the Reform Bill of 1832, in a fictional town and has a large cast of finely drawn characters. The setting gives Gaskell room for gossip, social comedy and a shrewd look at how marriages were arranged. Its subjects include class, education, marriage, money and the way a community watches and judges its members. It also has an interest in new scientific ideas, which shows in one of the principal characters, a young naturalist.
The recording has 61 sections and lasts more than twenty-seven hours. It is read by volunteers for LibriVox, who share the chapters among them.
Why listen now? Because the novel combines humour and compassion with a strong sense of place, and because it has the unhurried richness of a long Victorian story. It makes an excellent long listen, for example during a holiday or a long project.
Public domain
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell died in 1865: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text