[Gutenberg 24879] • Curious, if True / Strange Tales

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About Curious, If True: Strange Tales by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Curious, If True: Strange Tales is a collection of five dark Victorian tales of suspense, horror, mood and mystery by Elizabeth Gaskell. Includes "The Old Nurse's Story," "The Poor Clare," "Lois The Witch," "The Grey Woman," and "Curious, If True." Elizabeth Gaskell was born on September 29, 1810 to a Unitarian clergyman, who was also a civil servant and journalist. Her mother died when she was young, and she was brought up by her aunt in Knutsford, a small village that was the prototype for Cranford, Hollingford and the setting for numerous other short stories. In 1832, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. She participated in his ministry and collaborated with him to write the poem Sketches among the Poor in 1837. Our Society at Cranford was the first two chapters of Cranford and it appeared in Dickens' Household Words in 1851. Dickens liked it so much that he pressed Gaskell for more episodes, and she produced eight more of them between 1852 and 1853. She also wrote My Lady Ludlow and Lois the Witch, a novella that concerns the Salem witch trials.