SOURCE: "Cousin Phillis, the Short Stories, and Cranford," in Elizabeth Gaskell, Twayne Publishers, 1984, pp. 48-77.

In the following excerpt, Lansbury presents an overview of Gaskell's short stories.

It was not unusual for the short story in [the mid-nineteenth century] to be a prelude, a testing piece for a subsequent novel. Themes were tried out on the public in one of the weekly or monthly magazines and, if the response were favorable, then a novel would follow in due course. Dickens's own short fiction frequently enunciates situations and expresses moods that were later developed in longer works. Thackeray's snobs, grimacing and strutting through the pages of Punch, can be found refined and humanized in Vanity Fair. Most Victorian novelists moved easily between journalism and fiction, frequently conflating the two forms.

Gaskell had begun her public career as a writer of short stories and essays, and she continued composing them...