La prima Phillis

At seventeen years old, Paul Manning of Birmingham arrives in the small town of Eltham as an assistant to the railway engineer. Not far away, on a farm, live relatives of his mother: the pastor of Holman Independent Church, his wife and daughter, whom he is reluctantly forced to visit. However, the leisurely life he discovers there, governed as in Virgil's Georges by the calendar of field work, and the knowledge of his cousin Phillis, a girl who excels in height, culture and sensitivity, will start him in a new world in which he enters with respect and fascination. Cousin Phillis (1863-1864) is one of Elizabeth Gaskell's latest works and a prime example of her mature style.