Read of the Week: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Our Read this week comes on the recommendation of Angela Macmillan, editor of The Reader Magazine, who plumped for Wives and Daughters by Mrs Gaskell.

Time invested in a slow reading of the 700 pages of Wives and Daughters will be richly rewarded. It is Mrs Gaskell’s great gift to attend to and value the hidden and the unspoken within ordinary lives in human relationship.

The world of Hollingford may be small and unimportant in the grand scheme of things but once you are inside, the struggles and efforts, the failures and attainments of the people who live there become all absorbing and deeply meaningful.

Real, lively, funny, sometimes sad and always perceptive, this is a wonderful book for shared reading.

  “Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.” - Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters