I rather enjoyed this tale of "short stories" from Mrs Gaskell, if partly because there were only 5 stories in the volume which meant that they were quite long and more like novellas than anything else. I've never actually read any Mrs Gaskell novels before, although I had come across the tale "The old nurse's story" which is in this collection, along with "The grey lady", "The poor Clare", "Lois the witch" and "Curious if true".
It's a reasonably recent VMC, just published once with a modern green cover edition and an introduction by Jenny Uglow.PS: Has anyone read any novels by Mrs Gaskell? Are they also slightly chilling? And is there a good one to start with? I get the impression that she may be an author who I should discover, like having discovered Wilkie Collins last year.
