Notes on Texts - Preface - Introduction - Realising Christianity: Mary Barton - 'So Runs the Round of Life from Day to Day': Wives and Daughters and Comic Realism - Women, Death and Integrity 1: Lois the Witch - Women, Death and Integrity 2: Ruth - Women, Death and Integrity 3: North and South - Women and History: My Lady Ludlow - Cranford and Economics - Words and Values: Cousin Phillis - Tragedy, Topography and Choice: Sylvia's Lovers - 'It is not Long to Bide': The Shorter Fiction and the Meaning of Lives - Conclusion - Notes - Index

This new study deals with the whole range of Gaskell's fiction, approaching her as a deeply poetic novelist and short-story writer. Among topics covered are women and the creation of the self, death and personal integrity, the status of words as utterance and the shape and meaning of individual lives. While seeing her as a product of her age, Wright transcends narrow categorisations of her work to read her 'whole' as a subtle exponent of the values of a humane realism.