So I ended the book with an unfinished feeling, wishing that Gaskell had lived to put the last touches to this vivid tale of middle class life in a Midlands town, ‘”an everyday story”, as the subtitle puts it. In the dramatisation, an alternative ending is given, more satisfying, perhaps more wish fulfilling, a neat tying of the knot between the heroine and her lover, but not what the author intended. The only reason I haven’t given it five stars is that it is unfinished, and the last chapter, written by Frederick Greenwood, her editor, sketches the ending according to what he knew of her intentions. To find out why, read the book, an early feminist novel. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears…”. A great favourite when I was much younger is Cranford I still return to this one, a lovely, gentle satire of a village inhabited mostly by women, nearly all single - “Cranford is in possession of the Amazons all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. One of my all time favourites is North and South, and the BBC dramatisation of it is superb.
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