Welcome to The Feminist Bibliothecary’s Lite Reads, where we will read a different short story every week, and discuss it here and on social media. This week’s Lite Reads selection is The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell.
The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell was published in Household Words (the literary magazine of Charles Dickens, a friend and fan of Gaskell) in the 1952 Christmas issue. The Old Nurse’s Story had many of the classic elements of English Gothic literature, including a forbidding manor, forbidding people, ghosts, and secrets all around. This Victorian Gothic ghost story, a story told by an old nurse to the children she is looking after, is a great read for the month of October and with Halloween approaching.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810 – 1865) was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. Gaskell was known for writing stories that reflected social issues within Victorian England (much the same way Charles Dickens was known). Her best-known novels (originally serialised in magazines, including the former two in Household Words) include North and South (1854 – 1855), Cranford (1851 – 1853), and Wives and Daughters (1864 – 1866). Although her work is often compared to Dickens in the way she addressed class and social issues of the day, she was also inspired by Jane Austen, wrote female-focused novels, and wrote the first-ever biography of Charlotte Brontë (although Gaskell removed the parts of her life that she deemed “salacious”). Many of Gaskell’s short stories, like this one, fit within the gothic genre and featured ghosts.
You can read the full story in your web browser at this link. You can also listen to a full audio narration on Youtube.
Join us in the comments section here, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to participate in discussions throughout the week. You can also join in on the discussion at Litsy by following @elizabethlk.
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