Victorian classics, complete & annotated
Every chapter of the original story, retold in clear modern English, with chapter summaries and helpful notes on the words and world behind it.
Now available
Each edition pairs the full novel with notes you can read or skip, and the period engravings that first brought these stories to life.
Elizabeth Gaskell First published 1854–55
The Complete Novel in Modern English
Modern English edition by James M. Davidson
She came from the South. He rules the mill. Margaret Hale is forced from her quiet Hampshire parish to the smoky mill town of Milton, where masters and men are at war and John Thornton runs his mill with an iron will. What begins as mutual dislike hardens into something neither can name.
Elizabeth Gaskell First published 1851–53
The Complete Novel in Modern English
Modern English edition by James M. Davidson
The ladies rule Cranford. The gentlemen vanish. In Cranford, calls last a quarter of an hour, money is never mentioned, and being poor is politely called “elegant economy.” Then a half-pay captain talks openly about being poor, a traveling conjuror sets the town fearing burglars, and gentle Miss Matty learns that her bank has stopped payment.
Elizabeth Gaskell First published 1853
The Complete Novel in Modern English
Modern English edition by James M. Davidson
A girl is abandoned. A town must judge her. Ruth Hilton, an orphaned dressmaker's apprentice, is left alone in North Wales by a rich young gentleman. A gentle minister and his sister take her home and give her a new name. But in a proud and watchful town, the past she has hidden is waiting to return.
Every chapter and every character, not a summary or an abridgement.
Long Victorian sentences become clear, natural English you can read at your own pace.
Chapter summaries, word notes and history notes, easy to read or to skip.