[3] The story is about 19-year-old Paul Manning,[nb 1] who moves to the country and befriends his mother's family and his (second) cousin Phillis Holman, who is confused by her own placement at the edge of adolescence.
[4] Most critics agree that Cousin Phillis is Gaskell's crowning achievement in the short novel.
Cousin Phillis is also recognized as a fitting prelude for Gaskell's final and most widely acclaimed novel, Wives and Daughters, which ran in Cornhill Magazine from August 1864 to January 1866.
In 1982 a BBC television adaptation Cousin Phillis starring Anne-Louise Lambert, Tim Woodward and Ian Bannen.
Set in the 1840s, it deals with themes of social change in an isolated rural community that is reflected other works such as Cranford or North and South.