Gothic Tales
'"The curse—the curse!" I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self'\ An encounter with the supernatural in an everyday setting accentuates its strangeness; a truth used to eerie effect in Gaskell's Gothic tales. A portrait turned to the wall, a hidden manuscript, a mysterious child that lives on the freezing moors, a doppelganger formed by a woman's bitter curse: all of these things hint at male tyranny and woman as...
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Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; 'Lois the Witch', a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in The Old Nurse's Story a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors. Whether darkly surreal, such as 'The Poor Clare', where an evil doppelganger is formed by a woman's bitter curse, or mischievous like 'Curious, if True', a playful reworking of fairy tales, all the stories in this volume form a stark contrast to the social realism of Gaskell's novels, revealing a darker and more unsettling style of writing.
ChronologyIntroductionFurther ReadingNote on the TextsDisappearances1The Old Nurse's Story11The Squire's Story33The Poor Clare49The Doom of the Griffiths103Lois the Witch139The Crooked Branch227Curious, if True271The Grey Woman287Appendix341Notes342
