Others: Positive Ruth Volume 2 By Elizabeth Gaskell A sensitive portrayal of relationships within small towns and an exploration of seduction and illegitimacy within a small Dissenting community where tolerance and rigid morality clash.
Lists: …
Elizabeth Gaskell
1853 · 254 pages · 2 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveCranford was first serialized in Charles Dickens’ magazine Household Words between 1851 and 1853. The structureless nature of the stories, and the fact that Gaskell was busy writing her novel Ruth at the time the Cranford shorts were being published, suggests that she didn’t initially plan for Cranford to be a cohesive novel. The short vignettes follow the activities of the society in the fictional small English country town of Cranford. Gaskell drew from her own childhood in Knutsford to imbue her settings and characters with a nostalgic quality in a time when the societies and styles portrayed were already going out of fashion. Though not especially popular at the time of publication, Cranford has since gained an immense following, including at least three television adaptations.
What made the match, strongest first
Anita Brookner
1981 · 176 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive1 volume ; 19 cm
What made the match, strongest first
Sarah Grand
1897 · 527 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveBeing a study of the life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure A Woman of Genius
What made the match, strongest first
Anthony Trollope
1881 · 273 pages · 2 reviews
Others: PositiveMr Peacocke, a Classical scholar, has come to Broughtonshire with his beautiful American wife to live as a schoolmaster. But when the blackmailing brother of her first husband - a reprobate from Louisiana - appears at the school gates, a dreadful secret is revealed and the county is scandalized. Ostracised by the community, the pair seem trapped in a hopeless situation - until the combative but warm-hearted headmaster of the school, Dr Wortle, offers his support, and Mr Peacocke embarks upon a journey to America that he hopes will lay to rest the accusations once and for all. A perceptive exploration of Victorian morality, Dr Wortle's School (1881) also contains echoes of Trollope's own life, and his personal affection for the vivacious Bostonian Kate Field.
What made the match, strongest first
Elizabeth Gaskell
1855 · 450 pages · 15 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveWhen her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
What made the match, strongest first
James Baldwin
1956 · 224 pages · 10 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveConsidered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.
What made the match, strongest first
Loved itIt's a really thoroughly interesting book, a very interesting exploration of religion and self identity and relationships and surrogate families and the kind of families that people build from chance encounters. Really brilliant and I would highly recommend it.
