Round the Sofa

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 22K words
Chapters: 3

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Round the Sofa by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. Author: Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Mar 1, 2001

Editor's review

Elizabeth Gaskell's Round the Sofa is a collection of short stories and novellas linked by a frame narrative, embodying the characteristic pleasures of Victorian drawing-room storytelling. Through the device of characters gathered around a sofa telling stories, the work weaves together the fates of various figures with moral observation, offering both delicate depictions of everyday life and a gentle scrutiny of social circumstances and human frailties. Gaskell's prose is plain and restrained, her pacing unhurried, and she excels at revealing subtle shifts in her characters' psychology within seemingly ordinary domestic scenes; readers can sense the atmosphere and emotional texture of nineteenth-century English middle-class life. As a public-domain ebook, this edition is provided by Project Gutenberg and is convenient for searching and reading through on electronic devices. It is suitable as supplementary reading for courses on the Victorian short story in English literature, and for readers who enjoy classical narrative and are willing to savor character relationships at a slower pace. For those studying Gaskell's oeuvre and the tradition of frame narrative, the book also offers a text worthy of close reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who love Victorian English literature and want to understand Gaskell's shorter fiction
English literature students needing supplementary texts on frame narrative and the nineteenth-century short story
Readers accustomed to slow-paced classical narrative who prefer ensemble characters and everyday ethical description
Learners who wish to use an English-language ebook for extensive reading or course selections

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction seeking strong plotting, fast pacing, and suspenseful twists
Beginners with limited English reading experience who find nineteenth-century literary prose and long sentences difficult
Readers hoping for systematic social critique or a complete novel-length structure

Reading tips

Read the frame sections first to clarify the relationship between the narrators and the stories, then proceed to the individual tales
Pause briefly after each standalone story and note how the characters' situations echo the narrator's attitudes
Read alongside other works by Gaskell to observe how themes carry over from her short fiction to her novels
Read primarily in the original English; mark unfamiliar words and look them up later rather than frequently interrupting the narrative flow

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of short stories?

It is a collection of stories organized by a frame narrative, in which characters sit around a sofa and take turns telling tales; the individual stories are relatively independent yet linked by the outer narration. Readers should not expect the continuous plot of a novel; it is better suited to reading story by story.

Is the original English difficult for non-native readers?

The text is nineteenth-century British literary prose, with fairly long sentences and somewhat formal diction, but the narrative overall is plain rather than obscure. Readers with university-level English reading ability can work through it with notes and a dictionary; beginners should read selected passages.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This edition is a free public-domain ebook, convenient for downloading, searching, and copying text, and suitable for course selections and personal extensive reading. It does not include the introductions and notes of a modern publishing house, so readers who need background material must look elsewhere.

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About the author

Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865 Author

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865) was a British novelist of the Victorian era. The library holds 28 of her works, including Cranford, Wives and Daughters, North and South, Sylvia's Lovers, and The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Her writing focuses on daily life in English villages and industrial towns, with a delicate and often humorous touch, and she excels at portraying characters and circumstances across different social classes. Cranford depicts a small-town female community with gentle irony; North and South interweaves industrial conflict between employers and workers with personal feeling; and her biography of Charlotte Brontë is also an important biographical work. Public information is limited, so this note outlines her subjects and style based only on the works held here.