Round the Sofa is a collection consisting of the novel My Lady Ludlow prefaced by a short story Round the Sofa, which is used to provide a framework for the telling of My Lady Ludlow and the disparate stories. Mrs. Dawson tells the story of "My Lady Ludlow" and then five other narrators gather around the sofa, each telling a story: An Accursed Race, The Doom of the Griffiths, Half a Life-time Ago, The Poor Clare, and The Half-Brothers. "My Lady Ludlow" recounts 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. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) was an English novelist and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature. Some of Gaskell's best known novels are Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters.

Round the Sofa / Elizabeth Gaskell.

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.The 1859 2-volume set is unillustrated. The first volume consists of the novel My Lady Ludlow prefaced by a short story Round the Sofa, which is used to provide a framework for the telling of My Lady Ludlow and the disparate stories. Mrs. Dawson tells the story of "My Lady Ludlow" and then five other narrators gathered around the sofa each tell a story. The second volume consists of the short stories An Accursed Race, The Doom of the Griffiths, Half a Life-time Ago, The Poor Clare, and The Half-Brothers. The novel and three of the short stories were first published in Household Words. The Doom of the Griffiths was first published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in January 1858.The Half-Brothers was first published in The Dublin University Magazine in November 1858.Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, (n�e Stevenson; 29 September 1810 - 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Bront�, published in 1857, was the first biography of Bront�. Some of Gaskell's best known novels are Cranford (1851-53), North and South (1854-55), and Wives and Daughters (1865).

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Round the Sofa is the title of a two-volume collection of short stories by the famous nineteenth-century English novelist and writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It includes "My Lady Ludlow," "The Half-Brothers" and "An Accursed Race." The latter is in the form of a historical essay that condemns the racism and the persecution exercised on a group of people named the Cagots in the west of France. "Round the Sofa" is also the title of the first short story of the collection. Narrated in the first person, "Round the Sofa" takes the form of a preface to the longer "My Lady Ludlow." The young female narrator is ill and is sent to live near the house of her doctor, Mr. Dawson. After a number of visits, the narrator befriends Mrs. Dawson and expresses her true love for her: "But that Mrs. Dawson! The mention of her comes into my mind like the bright sunshine into our dingy little room came on those days; -- as a sweet scent of violets greets the sorrowful passer among the woodlands." It is Mrs. Dawson who, after long instance from the narrator, will tell the story of Lady Ludlow, the widowed Countess of Hanbury.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Round the Sofa is a collection of short stories, which introduces us to a set of characters who take turns to recount stories during their weekly soiree. It contains several tales, including An Accursed Race, an essay about a persecuted minority group of Cagots in Western France, and The Half Brothers – touching and sad story about brotherly love and a sheep-dog named Lassie.