The stories in this collection combine realism and fantasy. The themes are
familiar from Gaskell's novels, but their treatment is revealingly different,
ranging from ghost stories and comic fantasy, to a realistic tale of
17th-century witch trials.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 a[UNK]~The Old Nursea[UNK][trademark]s
Storya[UNK][trademark] a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland
moors. Whether darkly surreal, such as 'The Poor Clare', where an evil
doppelganger is formed by a womana[UNK][trademark]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.
