A review by petrauusimaa
Cousin Phillis and Other Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

3.0

Cousin Phillis and Other Tales is a collection of seven short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. I feel incredibly hard to rate this collection since the stories are a very mixed bag. Some of them I enjoyed very much, some of them left me feel a bit unaffected. They were all interesting and well written but most of them just didn't evoke any feelings in me. My favourites from the collection are definitely The Old Nurse's Story and Lois the Witch which left me breathless. All of the stories are very tragic and sad, so this is not a happy collection, far from it. I feel, however, that I will always like Elizabeth Gaskell's longer works better. Many of these stories just didn't have the spark the novels have; I felt a lot of the characters were very plain and not easy to relate to. Though, I do think The Old Nurse's Story and Lois the Witch are excellent stories and would wholeheartedly recommend to pick them up if you love Elizabeth Gaskell or want to get into her but the longer works feel too frightening.