Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

November 5th. In Tokyo some shops are already ready for the Christmas season! No matter; I’m going back to the Halloween mood by reading Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell. My Penguin edition book, purchased from Amazon, just arrived  in the mail yesterday.

I skipped the introduction because it kindly alerted me that it contains spoilers. I’ve never read a penguin intro with spoiler alerts. It must be because this book is a collection of  Gothic stories, and everything depends upon the suspense of not knowing.

That being said, this blog post contains *spoiler alerts*

Disappearances (1851)

In the first story, the first-person narrative retells stories and tales she has heard from others of people disappearing unexpectedly. However living in 1851, when the Detective Police would soon solve any case, there is no room for romance, and “we can no longer be haunted by the idea of the possibility of mysterious disappearances” (3).

She concludes, “I am thankful I live in the days of the Detective Police; if I am murdered, or commit bigamy, at any rate my friends will have the comfort of knowing it all” (10).

“It is no longer a struggle between man and man, but between a vast organized machinery, and a weak, solitary individual; we have no hopes, no fears – only certainty” (3).

Old Nurse’s Tale (1852)

I’m so confused about the family tree.
How can…
1. Rosamond’s mother (=Hester’s mistress) be “a grand-daughter of Lord Furnivall’s” (=Grace and Maude’s father) (11)
2. Lord Furnivall (=Hester’s lord) be the cousin of Rosamond’s mother (12);
3. Lord Furnivall (=Hester’s lord) be the great nephew of Miss Grace Furnivall (13)

The family tree…

Work Cited:
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. Gothic tales. Ed.by Laura Kranzler. London: Penguin Group (USA), 2000. Print.