Wives and Daughters
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wives and Daughters is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in the Cornhill Magazine as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866. When Mrs Gaskell died suddenly in 1865, it was not quite complete, and the last section was written by Frederick Greenwood.
The story revolves around Molly Gibson, only daughter of a widowed doctor living in a provincial English town in the 1830s.
[edit] Plot summary
Molly's mother died many years earlier, and Molly has been raised by her father and servants. As the story opens, she goes to visit the Hamleys of Hamley Hall, a gentry family that purportedly dates from the Heptarchy, but is now somewhat poor. There she finds a mother substitute in Mrs. Hamley, who embraces her almost as a daughter. Molly also strikes up a shy friendship with the Hamley's younger son, Roger. Molly is aware that, as the daughter of a professional man, she would not be considered a suitably genteel match for either of squire Hamley's sons.
Meanwhile, Molly's father abruptly decides to remarry, less from inclination than from a perceived duty to provide teenage Molly with a chaperone and the blessings of a (step)mother's advice. The usually dutiful Molly has a stormy relationship with her social-climbing stepmother, but she immediately hits it off with her new stepsister, Cynthia, who is about the same age as Molly. The two girls are a study in contrasts: Cynthia is far more worldly, and more openly rebellious, than the naive and slightly awkward Molly. Cynthia has been educated in France, and it gradually becomes apparent that she hides secrets in her past.
Mrs. Gibson tries unsuccessfully to bring about a marriage between her daughter Cynthia and Osborne Hamley, the heir of Hamley Hall. In fact, it is the younger son, Roger, who falls in love with Cynthia, and Cynthia accepts his offer of love, though she insists that their relationship should remain a secret until Roger returns from an extended trip to Africa. Meanwhile, Molly struggles against her growing love for Roger and discovers that Osborne, like Cynthia, has secrets of his own.
Illness and death at Hamley Hall bring some secrets out into the open..
[edit] Television adaptations
In 1999, BBC produced a four-part miniseries based on the novel with a screenplay written by Andrew Davies. Wives and Daughters featured the acting talents of Justine Waddell, Bill Paterson, Francesca Annis, Keeley Hawes, Rosamund Pike, Tom Hollander, Anthony Howell, Michael Gambon, Penelope Wilton, Barbara Flynn, Deborah Findlay, Iain Glen, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, and Ian Carmichael.
An odd moment in this miniseries occurs near the end of the final segment, when Roger Hamley (played by Anthony Howell) proposes marriage to Molly Gibson (Justine Waddell). Gibson's final speech is "Yes. Yes, I will. Yes," which is a slight variant of the last words of Molly Bloom's soliloquy ("yes I said yes I will Yes") at the conclusion of James Joyce's Ulysses, published more than 50 years after Gaskell's novel.
[edit] External links
- 1999 BBC miniseries of Wives and Daughters at the Internet Movie Database
- 1971 BBC miniseries of Wives and Daughters at the Internet Movie Database
- Wives and Daughters, available at Project Gutenberg.
- Wives and Daughters – complete book in HTML one page for each chapter.
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