Victorian Short Stories - Successful Marriages

by Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James

Overview

It seems unlikely that there could be any subject to have preoccupied writers throughout the ages more than the pursuit of love. This may have reached an all time high in the Victorian era when a new age of romanticism captured hearts and minds. However, whilst love might have been the ultimate quest there were numerous practical formalities that preceded it and after the immensely complicated and ritualised courtship, a good match was of paramount importance for both men and women. Women were on average in their early twenties when they married and by the age of 30 were ill considered as a good match and were very much 'on the shelf'. Once married, a man had total ownership and control over all physical property and income that belonged to his wife. She not only lost the little independence that had previously been afforded her but was now the domestic servant of her husband, responsible in ensuring that every aspect of the house from food to kids ran smoothly and caused no trouble to her husband. Divorce was only available to the extremely wealthy until 1857 so for a woman the man she married determined her life whilst the married man always had options. This series of short stories wonderfully captures the Victorian world of matrimony with gems from Elizabeth Gaskell, who with strong characterisation portrays tragedy but in a successful middle class marriage, Thomas Hardy and many more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785430497
Publisher:	Copyright Group
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	62
File size:	86 KB

About the Author

Tremendously popular in her lifetime, the books of the English author Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) have often been overshadowed by her contemporaries the Brontës and George Eliot. Yet the reputation of her long-neglected masterpiece Wives and Daughters continues to grow. Gaskell wrote six novels in all — of which North and South and Cranford remain two of the best known — as well as numerous short stories, novellas, and a biography of her great friend Charlotte Brontё.