This is Charles Eliot Norton writing to his mother, Mrs Andrews Norton, on July 2 1857 'One day as we were travelling in Italy, Mrs Gaskell and her daughters and I were talking about the books we would choose if we were shut up in a prison or on a desolate island. At last we agreed to choose one book by a living author, and when it came to Mrs Gaskell's turn to tell us what she had...