**The Penguin English Library Edition of Wives and Daughters by
Elizabeth Gaskell
**
Eh, miss, but that be a rare young lady! She do have such pretty
coaxing ways ...
Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he
decides to remarry, Molly's life is thrown off course by the arrival of
her vain, shallow and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the
shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and
irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and
Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia's love
affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the
gossiping village of Hollingford - and jeopardizing everything with the
man she is secretly in love with.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
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