First edition title page from Round the Sofa; Vol 1 contains My Lady Ludlow in its entirety.
My Lady Ludlow is a novel (over 77,000 words in the Project Gutenberg text) by Elizabeth Gaskell. It originally appeared in the magazine Household Words in 1858, and was republished in Round the Sofa in 1859, with framing passages added at the start and end.
The novel follows the daily lives of the widowed Countess of Ludlow of Hanbury and the spinster Miss Galindo, whose father was a Baronet, and their caring for other single women and girls. It is also concerned with Lady Ludlow's man of business, Mr. Horner, and a poacher's son named Harry Gregson whose education he provides for.
The narrator of the story is Margaret Dawson, an elderly woman and distant relative of Lady Ludlow who was sent to live with the Countess as a teenager.
TV Adaptation
With Cranford, The Last Generation in England and Mr. Harrison's Confessions, My Lady Ludlow was adapted for television in 2007 as Cranford, with Francesca Annis as the eponymous character, Alex Etel as Harry Gregson and Emma Fielding as Laurentia Galindo. Mr. Horner's name was changed to Mr. Carter, and was played by Philip Glenister. The character of Lord Septimus, the Countess' seventh child, is mentioned in the first series as he is in the novel. The book, however, was extended in the first episode of the second series Return to Cranford, featuring the death of Lady Ludlow from bone cancer, and Lord Septimus' return from Italy to claim his estate, where his ne'er-do-well personality is revealed. In the episode, Lord Septimus was portrayed by Rory Kinnear, with Annis, Etel and Fielding reprising their roles.
External links
Uglow, Jenny (3 November 2007). "Band of women". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 November 2007.
Susan Colon (October 2006). "Professional Frontiers in Elizabeth Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow". Women's Writing. 13 (3): 475–494. doi:10.1080/09699080600853153. S2CID162334541.
Pride and Prejudice is an 1813 novel of manners by English author Jane Austen. The novel follows the character development of Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist of the book, who learns about the repercussions of hasty judgments and comes to appreciate the difference between superficial goodness and actual goodness.
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë, published in 1857, was the first biography of Charlotte Brontë. In this biography, she wrote only of the moral, sophisticated things in Brontë's life; the rest she omitted, deciding certain, more salacious aspects were better kept hidden. Among Gaskell's best known novels are Cranford (1851–1853), North and South (1854–1855), and Wives and Daughters (1864–1866), all of which were adapted for television by the BBC.
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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions is an 1851 extended story by Elizabeth Gaskell about a doctor in a small English country town, benefitting from familiarity with the work of a general practitioner in Gaskell's own family. Episodes from the story and other works were adapted into the 2007 television series based on her novel Cranford.
Return to Cranford is the two-part second season of a British television series directed by Simon Curtis. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was based on material from two novellas and a short story by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1863: Cranford, The Moorland Cottage and The Cage at Cranford. Themes from My Lady Ludlow, Mr Harrison's Confessions and The Last Generation in England are included to provide continuity with the first series.
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Round the Sofa is an 1859 2-volume collection consisting of a novel with a story preface and five short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. The two volumes were published by Sampson Low, Son & Co. in London.
Lady Jane Stanley was a member of the Earl of Derby branch of the Stanley family. The daughter of Edward Stanley, 11th Earl of Derby she never married but, in her old age, maintained a large household at Brook House, Knutsford. A notable philanthropist, she installed and maintained footpaths in the town though, in line with her belief that couples should not walk with arms linked, she made them intentionally narrow. Stanley left significant donations in her will to friends, family, servants and to numerous charitable causes connected with the poor and sick. One bequest helped to maintain the footways in the town for many years, though they were widened from 2014 to allow for improved access. Stanley was the inspiration for the Honourable Mrs Jamieson in Elizabeth Gaskell's 1849 novel Cranford and the title character in her 1858 My Lady Ludlow.
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