A Dark Night's Work and Other Stories

by Elizabeth Gaskell, Suzanne Lewis (Editor)

Elizabeth Gaskell's delight in the macabre is nowhere more evident than in her short fiction. This volume testifies to the extraordinary range of Gaskell's art as a short story writer. "The Grey Woman" is a Gothic tale of terror and suspense, while the plot of "A Dark Night's Work" turns on concealed crime and a false accusation of murder.

Gaskell did not rely on Gothic thrills or sensational action to gain a reputation among her friends as a gifted storyteller or to become one of the most popular authors of her day. As Charles Dickens appreciated when he addressed her as 'My dear Scheherezade', Gaskell could transform the most simplest events of daily life into comedy or tragedy, horror or beauty.

Contents:
-A Dark's Night Work
-Libbie Marsh's Three Eras
-Six Weeks at Heppenheim
-Cumberland Sheep-Shearers
-They Grey Woman

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Victorian, Fiction, 19th Century, British Literature

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1863

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. 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.

AKA:
Елізабет Гаскелл (Ukrainian)

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of stories.

[Darryl Friesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short stories and one novella. These stories in particular embrace Gaskell’s love of and fascination with the macabre, terror, suspense, and secrets. A Dark Night’s Work, Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras, and The Grey Woman are particularly strong and highly effective examples of Gaskell’s skill at short forms.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice collection of Mrs. Gaskell's short stories (well, the title story is really a novella), of which I'd only read one before ("The Grey Woman"). There's an impressive range of subject, from the Gothic of "The Grey Woman" to the pastoral of "Cumberland Sheep-Shearers", and of setting, from Gaskell's own Manchester in "Libbie Marsh's Three Eras" to Switzerland, in "Six Weeks in Heppenheim". I particularly liked "A Dark Night's Work", which had a suspenseful plot and some excellent character studies.

[Sharon Barrow Wilfong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Dark Night's Work and Other Stories are a small collection of short stories by the Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell.

Gaskell was close friends with Charlotte Bronte, or at least as close as anyone could get with a recluse in five years, which was how long they knew each other before Bronte died.

Her work does not come near the power of Bronte's but still deserves a place in British and world literature.

Her work can often be dark and suspenseful as is the first and longest story in this anthology. This affected the way I read the other stories, reading them in fearful suspense, waiting for something dreadful to happen to the protagonists who were so vulnerable.

In A Dark Night's Work, a man does something criminal which is witnessed by his man servant and his daughter. They all agree to cover it up to preserve his tenuous standing in his social circles. They all pay a price however that permanently alters their lives.

The next story, Libbie Marsh's Three Eras, is about a poor homeless girl and her relationship with a crippled, lonely boy who she first sees through her window lying in bed next to the window of the house opposite.

In Six Weeks at Heppenheim a British man touring Germany becomes ill and is bedridden in an inn for several weeks in a small German village. While there he gets to know the inmates of the inn and their inner dramas, finding himself drawn in and finally a participant in their lives.

Cumberland Sheep-Shearers is without much plot and is mainly an observation of farm life during sheep-shearing time, although there is a slight story of romance between a man and woman which is hardly referred to but nevertheless makes a strong social statement, a statement that is prevalent in all Gaskell's stories.

The piece de resistance, however, is the last story. What the Grey Woman lacks in length, it more than makes up for in horror and suspense. A young, inexperienced girl is swept off her feet by a French count who carries her away to his remote and isolated chateau in the Swiss mountains. The terrifying discoveries awaiting her there induce her to finally escape with a loyal maid. What follows is a suspenseful chase scene that kept my stomach in knots to the end.

None of Gaskell's stories can be called profound and certainly don't hold a candle to the great's of the 19th century such as Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters, Trollope, or her good friend Thackery. She can rightly be accused of sentimentality at times approaching the maudlin. In Hollywood, she would be a "B" actor. Incidentally, the BBC has created several fine productions of her novels, my favorite being the Cranford series.

However she ably paints the English landscape in a way that reminds one of a Hudson School painting. Perhaps the others made clearer exposes of human character, but Gaskell showed the complicated social strata that afflicted a class conscious society and that by itself makes her books worth reading.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. I loved the title story, which had me in tears by the end. Unfortunately, the others I found either too saccharine, or too much of a slog.

[Niki (nikilovestoread) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. Two of the stories became new favorites by Gaskell, A Dark Night's Work and The Grey Lady. Both stories were fantastic. I couldn't wait to see how each was going to play out. I also really enjoyed Libby Marsh's Three Eras and Six Weeks at Heppenheim. The last story in the collection, Cumberland Sheep-Shearers was decidedly boring, but it was short and the rest of the stories made up for it.

[Simon Hedge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb collection of some of Gaskell's shorter works. She really is wonderfully skilled writer, probably in the top three of Victorian authors.
One question though, in The Grey Woman, how on earth did our hero and her maid hide in an empty attic with no water or toilet for at least two days?

[Mrsgaskell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of Gaskell stories very much. My favourite was the novella A Dark Night’s Work. It’s the story of Ellinor Wilkins, the devoted daughter of a prosperous conveyancing attorney. Handsome, accomplished, and gentlemanly Edward Wilkins is nevertheless considered somewhat inferior by the county gentry. His taste for the finer things in life eventually leads him to neglect his business affairs and ultimately this leads to tragedy and sorrow for both him and his daughter. The characterization, plot, and conclusion were all very satisfying. The remaining stories were Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras, Six Weeks at Heppenheim, Cumberland Sheep Shearers, and The Grey Woman. I’d read The Grey Woman before, it’s in Gaskell’s collection of Gothic Stories, but the others were all new to me. Cumberland Sheep Shearers was perhaps “everything you wanted to know about sheep farming but were afraid to ask” but it was a beautifully detailed picture of rural life.

[Jennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. I kind of got tired of all the lady protagonists being so horribly good, and self-sacrificing, and easily overwhelmed by the harrowing drama in which they are enmeshed. The heroines all seem to have the same personality, and they all sort of blur together. There are some moments where Gaskell manages to create some genuine tension, particularly in the title story, but she has a hard time sustaining it. I do feel that "The Grey Lady" would have been a totally rocking story if the heroine's maid had embraced her male disguise to the point that they developed a hot hot lesbian relationship. For some reason I can totally see a story like that being a super-awesome independent French or German film. This may just be a side effect of the fact that I desperately want to crawl back to college right now and never come out.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

In regards to the edition, I suggest not reading Suzanne Lewis's introduction or explanatory notes unless you're prepared for spoilers or the note is about a French word, 'cause Lewis is expert at the spoilers and never offers spoiler alerts. Otherwise this was a perfectly acceptable book of stories. I don't have any particular complaints about them, but neither do I feel like raving about how amazing any of them were. I may read other Gaskell works, shall I come upon them, but I'm not sure I'll seek them out. I did, however, find myself wanting to read them when I was, say, practicing, doing homework, or in class; but the urge was quite easily ignored if I happened to be at the end of a chapter/section or story.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read only A Dark Night's Work, a novella that Deborah Wynne calls sensation fiction. I read somewhere that Dickens added "Dark" to the title to spice it up. The first few parts are slow on the suspense, gradually building tension regarding Wilkins' unreliability. The last few parts grip you, though, and have plenty of coinicidences and plot twists to keep interest moving. Ellinor is for the most part a very passive protagonist. This novella is inminiature what Gaskell's other social realist novels are--a middle class woman takes charitable and heartfelt interest in the lower classes, and swears to help them no matter what.

[Alexa Chipman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I realized it was a murder mystery type book I thought I would dislike it, since I am not keen on that genre, but it turned out to be an intense psychological look at how a murder affects those around it, without all the glitz or guts we attach to the genre today. Gaskell expertly shows the downward spirals of various characters who deal with the tragedy in their own ways, some managing to have a happy ending in spite of it, others who are never able to recover. Not your typical Victorian novella.

[Tocotin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning reminds me strongly of Wives and Daughters, and I wonder if I've been able to predict some things, but it's worth reading and the psychological descriptions are excellent.
Well, it was worth reading and I really liked the relationship between Ellinor and Dixon, but the story sagged a bit in the middle, and I'd have liked to see a steadier progress of the romance with the other suitor - it seemed too abrupt.