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Elizabeth Gaskell

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Cousin Phillis Kindle Edition

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.9 70 ratings

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Cousin Phillis is novel by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. A 19-year-old Paul Manning moves to the country and befriends his mother's family and his cousin Phillis, who is confused by her own placement at the edge of adolescence.

Print length

45 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Good Press
Publication date

May 18, 2021
File size

1292 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
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About the Author

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson (29 September 1810 - 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. She is perhaps best known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of society, including the very poor, and as such are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0821RGCXN
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Good Press (May 18, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 18, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1292 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 45 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #3,774,923 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #23,734 in 90-Minute Literature & Fiction Short Reads
- #260,601 in Literature & Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 70 ratings

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Elizabeth Gaskell

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Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born in London in 1810, but she spent her formative years in Cheshire, Stratford-upon-Avon and the north of England. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell, who became well known as the minister of the Unitarian Chapel in Manchester’s Cross Street. As well as leading a busy domestic life as minister’s wife and mother of four daughters, she worked among the poor, traveled frequently and wrote. Mary Barton (1848) was her first success.

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

70 global ratings

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Bumper B

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2014

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I love Elizabeth Gaskell. Audio book was a delight to listen to while on a road trip.

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2019

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It took a while to get into the story. but it was slight light reading at best.

Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2015

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It's well written Novell, but short.

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2014

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It was wonderful. I love the writing. The mailind was seamless!

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Peggy Sue McRae

Jane Austin fans please meet Elizabeth Gaskell

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2008

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Beautifully described subtlety of feeling against the backdrop of the English countryside just as England, as cousin Phyliss, are about to experience defining changes.

3 people found this helpful

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Ruthe

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2014

Good story

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2008

Like Cranford and Wives and Daughters, Cousin Phillis is a variation on the themes that seemed to have preoccupied Elizabeth Gaskell: the changes wrought by mechanization and the different spheres in which men and women live and operate.

When the narrator, then 19, meets Phillis, her physical world is small, contained, and regular, predictably following the seasons as agricultural life does. Her intellectual life, however, is vast. She is comfortable with Latin and the principles of mechanics; she attempts to read Dante in Italian. As Jenny Uglow notes in the foreword, ". . . she does not crave 'independence,' but connection . . . She yearns to use her mind and give her heart." She wants to be a woman.

By contrast, the men around her are reshaping the world with their thought, their inventions, their ambition, and their work. Even the narrator, who admittedly lacks his father's inventive genius and Holdsworth's drive, is doing more than Phillis ever could simply by serving as Holdsworth's assistant.

With her flourishing intellectual curiosity and her growing sexual awareness, it's natural for Phillis to discard the pinafore that represents the restrictions placed on the Victorian woman-child and to desire a man whose tastes, abilities, and drive seem to parallel her own. The result is not surprising. As a woman, her opportunities are limited, while those of the man stretch across two continents and grow greater with each rail laid. It's clear who is destined to be disappointed.

As with the other novels, Gaskell captures a world within her own memory that in many ways had already ceased to exist. The narrator, older and married now, recalls in vivid detail an experience colored by the passage of time and by the changes that have transpired. The bogs, "all over with myrtle and soft moss," could not fail to be altered irrevocably by the railway line, nor could the Hope Farm, with its cozy "house place" and "the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments." Phillis's father learns that she cannot be kept in a pinafore and all that it represents, and the narrator "feared that she would never be what she had been before." No one is.

The narrator leaves us with enticing mysteries. What has prompted him to write about Phillis? What has happened? What does he want to accomplish by telling her story now? What is he trying to recapture? What happened to Phillis? What happened to the Hope Farm and its way of life that he so beautifully recalls and the tenor of which is so effectually altered by events?

Cousin Phillis is a tiny treasure--always evocative, never overwrought. We see Phillis and her natural evolution from child to woman with the narrator's wisdom of maturity and the clarifying, yet softening filters of time. The narrator--and Gaskell--leave Phillis trapped in time, changed, newly aware of the broadness of her desires and of the obstacles she faces, and determined to "go back to the peace of the old days"-- a hope that is nearly impossible to achieve. There is no going back, as Phillis must surely know.

8 people found this helpful

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Love To Read

Excellent In Every Way

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2011

The silky smooth writing style, choicest selection of words, rich descriptions and subtle but fascinating story line makes this novella a superior, exquisite piece of literature. I savored every word and read it only in the most pleasant atmosphere so as not to miss the full effect.

Cousin Phillis is in a different category from the major great works. It's like waking up on a hammock in the middle of summer to the sounds of birds chirping and a babbling brook in the distance. I can't say enough about it. Required reading for anyone who treats literature as food for the soul.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

8tch

Exactly what I hoped for...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2021

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A gentle, beautifully written novella, full of feeling. Perfectly developed characters in such a short piece. I have read several by the author before and look forward to completing her entire bibliography

Sue

Cousin Phillis audio book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2013

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I found this talking book, very boring, in fact I kept dropping off to sleep, what more can I say!

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 28, 2018

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Short but powerful book