It sounds old-fashioned, (and there are themes in the novel which date it) but Gaskell's witty, warm tale of love and longing is surprisingly contemporary. The Industrial Revolution hasn't yet thrown the country into turmoil, and the railway is just beginning to cut a swathe through the land.

Wives and Daughters is set in the mid-19th century in the small village of Hollingford, in rural England. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. This edition, the first to be based in the original Cornhill Magazine serialization of 1864-6, draws on a full collation of the manuscript to present the most accurate text so far available. Through Molly's observations the hierarchies, social values, and social changes of early nineteenth-century English life are made vivid in a novel that is timeless in its representation of human relationships. Intertwined with the story of the Gibsons is that of Squire Hamley and his two sons as Molly grows up and falls in love she learns to judge people for what they are, not what they seem. Her widowed father marries a second time to give Molly the woman's presence he feels she lacks, but until the arrival of Cynthia, her dazzling step-sister, Molly finds her situation hard to accept. Molly Gibson is the daughter of the doctor in the small provincial town of Hollingford. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell's last novel, is regarded by many as her masterpiece. 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. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia's love affairs. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and irresistible to every man she meets. But when he decides to remarry, Molly's life is thrown off course by the arrival of her vain, shallow and selfish stepmother. Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. 'Eh, miss, but that be a rare young lady! She do have such pretty coaxing ways. The Penguin English Library Edition of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

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