Gothic Tales

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.