Gothic Tales (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Gaskell, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014043741X ISBN 13: 9780140437416

Verlag: Penguin Classics, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

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.

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Contraportada:

"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 avenging angel -- or devil.

Gaskell was fascinated by the dualities in women's lives and the way in which fact and fiction merge. 'Disappearances', a mix of gossip, legend and fact, relates stories of mysterious vanishings, 'Lois the Witch', a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to communal hysteria and persecution, while 'The Grey Woman' explores a common Gothic theme, the way in which the ghosts of the past always return to haunt us.

Biografía del autor:

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) wrote her first novel, MARY BARTON, in 1848 as a distraction from her sorrow at the death of her only son in infancy. It won the attention of Dickens and was followed by 5 other full-length novels as well as numerous short stories and novellas.

Laura Kranzler has written on Mary Shelley and Virginia Woolf and has published a novel.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Penguin Classics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• ISBN 10: 014043741X
• ISBN 13: 9780140437416
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Herausgeber: Kranzler Laura