San Antonio College Library

In the last few decades Elizabeth Gaskell has become a figure of growing importance in the field of Victorian literary studies. This companion will be valuable for students and scholars of Victorian literature and includes a chronology and guide to further reading.

Elizabeth Gaskell's tale of love across the social divide is brought to life in Sandy Welch's four-part adaptation. When Margaret Hale exchanges her rural life for a northern mill town, she witnesses firsthand the poverty of the working classes. She also meets mill-owner John Thornton, who she initially despises, while he finds her willful and proud. When the workers of Milton call a strike, Margaret takes their side, and the two are brought into...

In nineteenth-century England, marriage between first cousins was both legally permitted and perfectly acceptable. After mid-century, laws did not explicitly penalize sexual relationships between parents and children, between siblings, or between grandparents and grandchildren. But for a widower to marry his deceased wife's sister was illegal on the grounds that it constituted incest. That these laws and the mores they reflect strike us today as wrongheaded...