Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Elizabeth Gaskell
-
Standard Name: Gaskell, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson
Nickname: Lily
Married Name: Elizabeth Gaskell
Indexed Name: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Pseudonym: Cotton Mather Mills
Pseudonym: The Author of Mary Barton etc.
Self-constructed Name: E. C. Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell
, one of the foremost fiction-writers of the mid-Victorian period, produced a corpus of seven novels, numerous short stories, and a controversial biography of Charlotte Brontë
. She wrote extensively for periodicals, as well as producing novels directly for the book market, often on issues of burning interest: her industrial novels appeared in the midst of fierce debate over class relations, factory conditions and legislation; Ruth took a fallen woman and mother as its protagonist just as middle-class feminist critique of gender roles emerged. Gaskell occupies a bridging position between Harriet Martineau
and George Eliot
in the development of the domestic novel.
There are occasional moments of wit, as when destitution reveals that the family servants think terms of practical life rather than sentimental fiction: the old-fashioned type of servant, who appears so frequently in Morton
's...
Intertextuality and Influence
Matilda Charlotte Houstoun
The choice of name for the seduced woman in MCH
's novel suggests that it is in part a response to the fortunate and highly idealised fate of the fallen woman and mother in Elizabeth Gaskell
Intertextuality and Influence
George Eliot
Much feminist interest in the novel has centered on the relationship between Felix and Esther Lyon and the novel's treatment of the relationship between women and the public sphere. The book is in many ways...
Intertextuality and Influence
U. A. Fanthorpe
With this volume, says UAF
, I entered the different world of S. Martin's, Lancaster, and of France; and I was just beginning to have things to say about the condition of women...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anna Mary Howitt
Anna Mary Howitt
published An Art-Student in Munich, written on the advice of her mother, Mary Howitt
, and of Elizabeth Gaskell
.
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago.
Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale. Macmillan.
343
Bishop, William John, and Sue Goldie. A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale. Dawsons for the International Council of Nurses.
52
On 31 December 1858Elizabeth Gaskell
said of the second volume:...
Literary responses
Margaret Sandbach
Writing for the Athenæum, Elizabeth Gaskell
was convinced the author was a woman because the person who would call a horse a pleasure-giving thing, and talk so fluently of imaginings and questionings...
Literary responses
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The American reviews were highly flattering. The reviewer for the Boston Transcript could think of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the English language, not even George Eliot
at her best.
Gerzina, Gretchen. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chatto and Windus.
67
Literary responses
Anthony Trollope
AT
's reputation grew steadily over the appearance of these novels. Elizabeth Gaskell
wrote: I wish Mr. Trollope would go on writing Framley Parsonage for ever.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Literary responses
Adelaide Procter
Athenæum reviewer H. F. Chorley
, sandwiching his discussion of A Chaplet of Verses between those of two other works by earnest women, expressed some annoyance at its assured and zealous sectarianism and regretted...
Literary responses
Barbara Pym
BP
's father wrote to her on 3 May 1950 commending this novel, which he had not expected to enjoy since he preferred mysteries.
Wyatt-Brown, Anne M. Barbara Pym: A Critical Biography. University of Missouri Press.
157n12
Robert Liddell
, who had been familiar with it throughout...
Brontë
also indulged in assumptions about gender and class in her reading of the critique. She wrote: I read The Quarterly without a pang, except that I thought there were some sentences disgraceful to the...
Literary responses
Anna Brownell Jameson
A Commonplace Book was reviewed by the Literary Gazette, the Athenæum (by Henry Fothergill Chorley
), The Spectator and Gentleman's Magazine.
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
47
Elizabeth Gaskell
pronounced herself in a letter to ABJ
delighted with its graceful suggestive wisdom.
Jameson, Anna Brownell. Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships (1812-1860). Editor Erskine, Beatrice Caroline, T. Fisher Unwin.
295
Literary responses
Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
Once again reviewers (as quoted at the back of The Matrimonial Lottery) were delighted with these [c]lever studies of Irish life and character. The Athenæum praised especially those stories which reflected first-hand knowledge (with...