Love it and It's On Sale - The Elizabeth Gaskell Collection

I love all three of these movies and I just bought it.  So excited!  Found it on sale at Amazon and I felt compelled to let all of you know about it, so that you could buy it too.  I've been wanting to buy it for awhile, but it was more than I wanted to spend.  If you haven't seen any of these movies, you're missing out.  I love, love, love these movies.  Oh did I mention I love them?  I even got free shipping.  Merry Christmas to me!

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill-workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction.

 I haven't read the book yet.  Someone told me the ending is different than the movie and I haven't felt like reading it since.
Have you read it? What's your opinion?

 The love scene alone is enough to make me want to watch this movie again and again.

An enchanting tale of romance, scandal, and intrigue in the gossipy English town of Hollingford around the 1830s, Wives and Daughters tells the story of Molly Gibson, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a widowed country doctor. When her father remarries, she forms a close friendship with her new stepsister—the beautiful and worldly Cynthia—until they become love rivals for the affections of Squire Hamley’s sons, Osbourne and Roger. When sudden illness and death reveal some secrets while shrouding others in even deeper mystery, Molly feels that the world is out of joint and it is up to her—trusted by all but listened to by none—to set it right.

I enjoyed this book more than the movie.  I loved the details of village life and Molly is charming.  The interaction between the women is intiguing and the love story is satisfying.

Cranford is a humorous account of a nineteenth-century English village dominated by a group of genteel but modestly circumstanced women. By eschewing the conventional marriage plot with its nubile heroines and focusing instead on a group of middle-aged and elderly spinsters, Elizabeth Gaskell did something highly unusual within the novel genre. Through her masterful management of the novel's tone, she underscores the value and dignity of single women's lives even as she causes us to laugh at her characters' foibles. Charles Dickens was the first of many readers to extol its wit and charm, and it has consistently been Gaskell's most popular work.

I had a hard time getting into this book.  The movie was absolutely charming though.  I think I need to go back and give this book another try.  Have you read it? Any thoughts?