Round the Sofa (Annotated)

Round the Sofa gathers a sequence of tales within an intimate frame: a convalescent listener hears friends recount histories of family secrecy, provincial memory, class injury, romance, and moral trial. Gaskell's prose moves between domestic realism, Gothic unease, and antiquarian reminiscence, giving each narrative the texture of spoken testimony. Published in the mid-Victorian periodical milieu,...