Wives and Daughters

Front Cover
Penguin Adult, Apr 2, 2009 - Fiction - 914 pages
Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he decides to remarry, Molly s life is thrown off course by the arrival of her vain, shallow and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia s love affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the gossiping village of Hollingford and jeopardizing everything with the man she is secretly in love with.

Other editions - View all

About the author (2009)

Elizabeth Gaskell was born in London in 1810 but spent most of her life in Cheshire, Stratford-upon-Avon. She married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters by him. She worked among the poor, travelled frequently and wrote for Dickens's magazine, Household Words. Elizabeth Gaskell was friends with Charlotte Bronte and consequently went on to write her biography.

Bibliographic information