Gaskell redux

A couple of weeks ago, at reference 1, I noticed Wentworth Woodhouse, noticing in passing that the place was used for the BBC costume drama called 'Wives and Daughters'.

The costume drama was subsequently bought from Amazon for a fiver plus P&P, for which we get four episodes totalling around 300 minutes of viewing. Not bad value at all.

Along the way we got to know that this was the last book that Gaskell wrote, barely finishing it before she died at the age of 55 from a heart attack. Just about a generation after Jane Austen.

Much of what one would expect from a costume drama of this sort. Much inflation of house size - an irritating feature of most Jane Austen adaptations, although we did get plenty of splendid views of Wentworth Woodhouse, inside and out. We associated to all of Clandon House (deceased) , Holkham Hall (seaside) and Houghton House (Walpole), all of which sport similarly grand halls. Much coarse behaviour from all classes of people. Much aping of their betters by people of a middling sort. Lots of big hats and big hairdo's. But really a story about the love of gentlemen for those beneath their station - servants even - and the trials and tribulations of step parents and step children - of which there must have been a great many in those days - rather as there are now, albeit for rather different reasons. How the good girl gets her man in the end. Providing suitable occupation for girls too posh to go out to work. Plus a Sean Bean body double. Mostly matters of perennial interest. Surprisingly gripping; a salutary reminder that television does not need to be content free and affectively dead. Perhaps we really do watch too much early evening ITV3.

So interest stimulated. But any Gaskell which we once owned has long been recycled, so off to Epsom to see what could be done there. And I am pleased to say that our not very big Waterstone's had a copy, along with several of her other books. While I think it a fair bet that Epsom Library would not have had any of them on shelf, although I dare say they could have got them in from the provinces fast enough.

Much fatter book than I was expecting, proper Victorian three decker. So we shall see how we get on.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/fake-46.html.