Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell Read Free Book Online Page A

(1996), pp. 89–99, also provides useful readings.
    New work on the Gothic genre is continually being produced, but readers interested in the genre in particular would be well advised to consult the standard text in the field, David Punter's
The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fictions from 1765 to the Present Day
(London: Longman, 1980), which is still one of the best sources for a wide-ranging approach to the fiction. Also useful is Fred Botting,
Gothic
(London: Routledge, 1996), which introduces the history and conventions of the genre. Of especial interest is Maggie Kilgour's
The Rise of the Gothic Novel
(London: Routledge, 1995), an ambitious overview of the field which provides excellent, detailed readings of the most famous works of Gothic fiction, as well as some lesser-known examples. For an excellent study of Victorian Gothic fiction, see Robert Mighall,
A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's Nightmares
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
NOTE ON THE TEXTS
    The stories and novellas in this collection are arranged chronologically, in order of their first published appearance in periodicals; the texts are taken from the last volume editions published in England during Elizabeth Gaskell's lifetime, over which she presumably exercised some level of authorial control (see headnotes to Notes for details).
    However, a close collation of the various editions reveals very few differences between the texts.
p. 51 l. 31
procession (for periodical's ‘possession’)
p. 99 l. 18
than (then)
p. III l. 5
of the slight (of slight)
p. 113 ll. 26–7
craving of desire (craving desire)
p. 119 l. 11
whit (wit)
p. 267 l. 5
woeful (woful)
p. 330 l. 5
re-enter (re-inter)
    The text has been emended to ‘It seemed’ (p. 299 1. 26), although both printed versions read ‘I seemed’. Spellings which were inconsistent and misleading have been modernized: sat (
for
sate), Madam (Madame), staunch (stanch), spurted (spirted), befall
and
befell (befal
and
befel). When spellings vary between stories, these have been left, with one exception: ‘grey’ and ‘gray’ appear frequently and vary between tales and within a tale, and ‘grey’ has been imposed throughout. Other textual changes and inconsistencies are discussed in the Notes.
    Since the pieces come from several sources, minor stylistic details have been housestyled to: single quotation marks, no stop after titles(e.g. Mr, Mrs, St), ‘iz’ spellings (e.g. recognize), spaced en-dashes (and em-dashes for 2em-dashes) and no comma in a series before the conjunction.

The Old Nurse's Story
    You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only child; and I daresay you have heard that your grandfather was a clergyman up in Westmoreland, 1 where I come from. I was just a girl in the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to ask the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye, when the mistress called me up, and spoke to my being a good girl at my needle, and a steady, honest girl, and one whose parents were very respectable, though they might be poor. I thought I should like nothing better than to serve the pretty young lady, who was blushing as deep as I was, as she spoke of the coming baby, and what I should have to do with it. However, I see you don't care so much for this part of my story, as for what you think is to come, so I'll tell you at once. I was engaged and settled at the parsonage before Miss Rosamond (that was the baby, who is now your mother) was born. To be sure, I had little enough to do with her when she came, for she was never out of her mother's arms, and slept by her all night long; and proud enough was I sometimes when missis trusted her to me. There never was such a baby before or since, though you've all of you been fine enough in your turns; but for sweet, winning ways, you've none of you