by Elizabeth Gaskell
The first part of this short novel is a sweet story about a naive young woman who all the menfolks agree is pretty but a little too brainy to make an attractive mate. After all, what man wants a wife who is better read, knows more languages, and asks business, engineering, and farming questions? Plu...
Facially, the story is your basic Austen setup with the sole difference apparent at first sight that the narrator is a male observer of the events (which incidentally is unusual for Gaskell, too) and [spoiler] there is no HEA -- the ending is open. [/spoiler] However, this wouldn't be Gaskell if s...
This is an unabridged version, 48MB, running for 3.5 hours.Review from "The Dark Side of the Moon"Like "Cranford" and "Wives and Daughters", the novella "Cousin Phillis" is a variation on the themes that seemed to have preoccupied Elizabeth Gaskell: the changes wrought by mechanization and the diffe...