Dear Elizabeth Gaskell,

It is the very farthest thing from my intent, dear Mrs. Gaskell, to rebuke you for anything that you could not help. Indeed, I wish not to rebuke you, for I am most assured that if you could have helped it, you would have done your very best to do so. Thus, it is with much regret I state the cause of my great sorrow, knowing it to be something you could not alter or change.
I know you did not mean to die before you had finished the last words of Wives and Daughters. I know it to be something that was far from intentional, and it was not with the intent of vexing me that you did so. In fact, I fully realize that it is most self absorbed of me to be carrying on about my sorrow when I really ought to be speaking of the sorrow of your family, or of you yourself. I'm sure it wasn't entirely pleasant for you.
You see, though, my sorrow is the sorrow of all of your readers. We laughed, we cried, we knew just how you were intending to end it, but we were never to have that satisfaction of reading that ending in your own words. We were never to have the satisfaction of closing our copies with a happy sigh, knowing that all was right with our world.
We were left waiting with Molly, waiting for it to turn right, waiting for news of Roger- waiting. I think very few of us had any doubt how our story would turn out, we knew from the very beginning that Roger and Molly were meant to be together- but our story was left in silence.
I rather wonder how many readers, after their first heartbreak of unfinished story, were driven to resort to desperate measures; writing a sadly insufficient ending but satisfactory in as much that it was an ending. My own was scribbled on a few pages of notebook paper, in a factual and rather bare style, exactly what was needed for an end. A properly sentimental treasuring on Roger's part of a rose, a happy ending for those characters who needed one, and a brief mentioning of those characters who needed an ending, but who we did not wish the fullness of happiness to. After that I felt that I could move on, with only a few looks of regret at that unfinished story.
North and South has one of my favorite endings of all time, and I can only imagine Wives and Daughters' unwritten ending with regret.
I really do need to be rereading both North and South and Wives and Daughters sometime soon. It's been far too long since I've read either. Though of course, I always end up crying over both. Choosing between them I would have to say that Wives and Daughters is my favorite. I love North and South, with an especial fondness in my heart for some certain scenes, but Wives and Daughters can't help but be my favorite. Perhaps because I have more love for Molly than Margaret.
I've been meaning to find more of your books, besides those two, that will have to come next of my rather lengthy reading list. You were the author who brightened my life after I was in that "there are no more Jane Austen novels left to read" state of despair.

Much Love,
Emily