Mr. Harrison’s Confessions is a novella by Elizabeth Gaskell which was first published as a magazine serial. Mr. Harrison is a young doctor who has just finished his studies and is invited by a friend of his father’s, Mr. Morgan (apparently doctors weren’t addressed as such yet in those days), to join his practice in the small town of Duncombe, England, in the mid-1850s.

Of course, the two doctors’ styles are very different. Morgan frequently corrects and advises Harrison on everything from his clothes to “how things are done” in Duncombe. Harrison is full of the latest medical theories and practices while Morgan is steeped in ways of an older country doctor. Morgan knows how to use the town’s gossip mill to advantage while Harrison is baffled by it.

Thanks to Morgan’s touting the new doctor’s skills, the town generally accepts him. But when differences of opinion arise, his reputation is at stake.

Maybe because of naivete or lack of experience with small town gossip, he finds himself romantically linked with three different women–none of home is Sophy, the vicar’s daughter, whom he is genuinely interested in.

This novella is sometimes referred to as a prequel to Cranford by the same author, though they are set in different towns and don’t have any characters in common. But the feel of small town village life is similar. I was unaware of this story until learning that the British TV series Cranford included this book and My Lady Ludlow in its series taken from the novel Cranford. The vicar in Mr. Harrison’s Confessions is the one in the TV series.

Gaskell was said to have drawn from the experiences of an uncle who was a doctor for her medical knowledge.

This was a nice story with both comedy and pathos.