Sylvia is a heroine loved by two men of completely different types. The novel follows her development from a wilful, imaginative, but not especially clever girl, to an alert woman who has been matured by her suffering.

Sylvia's Lovers (1863) is a novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell, which she called "the saddest story I ever wrote".

The reputation of Elizabeth Gaskell is undergoing a renaissance as we enter the new millennium. The variety of her work and the range of her acquaintance makes her one of the most interesting literary figures of her century. This new collection of her letters illustrates the richness and diversity of her involvement in a remarkable range of social and literary activities. Out of the 270 letters included in this volume only 40 have been previously published.

In the last few decades Elizabeth Gaskell has become a figure of growing importance in the field of Victorian literary studies. She produced work of great variety and scope in the course of a highly successful writing career that lasted for about twenty years from the mid-1840s to her unexpected death in 1865. The essays in this Companion draw on recent advances in biographical and bibliographical studies of Gaskell and cover the range of her impressive and varied output as a writer of novels, biography, short stories, and letters. The volume, which features well-known scholars in the field of Gaskell studies, focuses throughout on her narrative versatility and her literary responses to the social, cultural, and intellectual transformations of her time. This Companion will be invaluable for students and scholars of Victorian literature, and includes a chronology and guide to further reading.