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.
Her body was placed in the family vault in Haworth Church on April 4. When Gaskell
heard of the circumstances of the death, she regretted she had not known; she would have hoped to save...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Numerous friends and acquaintances of CB
wrote tributes or obituaries which initiated the legend of the Brontës and Charlotte in particular: Harriet Martineau
in the Daily News on April 6; Matthew Arnold
in a short...
Material Conditions of Writing
Charlotte Brontë
CB
's stay in Brussels (as well as contributing eventually to Villette) produced a number of French exercises or devoirs, plus her subsequent letters to Constantin Heger
. Four of the letters (of which...
Textual Features
Charlotte Brontë
The novel focuses on the Luddite riots in Yorkshire in the Napoleonic era. Shirley Keeldar, an heiress with a man's name who revels in her unconventionality (and who was, according to conversation Elizabeth Gaskell
had...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emily Brontë
His eventual position as a clergyman and published author in early nineteenth-century England was, given his background, a considerable accomplishment. Notwithstanding Elizabeth Gaskell
's portrait of him in her biography of his daughter as an...
Health
Emily Brontë
EB
apparently had a very independent character. In a famous incident related to Elizabeth Gaskell
by Charlotte
, Emily tried to help a possibly rabid dog, only to have it bite her. She immediately went...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anne Brontë
Patrick Brontë
was an Irish protestant from a large, respectable farming family of limited means. He took to books from an early age, opened a school for the gentry at the age of sixteen, became...
Literary responses
Emily Brontë
Since the early criticism which took its lead from Charlotte's biographical portrait, a biographical and hagiographic industry has arisen around all three Brontë sisters and their home in Haworth. A. Mary F. Robinson
published...
Residence
Anne Brontë
Despite the depiction of the village as an isolated, primitive place full of uneducated, violent inhabitants (by Elizabeth Gaskell
in her Life of Charlotte Brontë), it was a busy mill town of about 4,500...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell
initiated her friendship with CB
by her sympathetic comments about the sickbed scenes in Shirley.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
615
Travel
Charlotte Brontë
CB
visited her neighbours Sir James
and Lady Kay-Shuttleworth
in the Lake District, where she met Elizabeth Gaskell
.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
631, 651, 653
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin.
417
Travel
Charlotte Brontë
CB
visited Elizabeth Gaskell
in Manchester on her way back to Haworth.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
681
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell
visited CB
at Haworth for four days.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
738
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
By 1832 she had read Mme de Staël
's novel of the romantic female artist, Corinne, three times and claimed the immortal book ought to be reread annually.
Browning, Robert, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Brownings’ Correspondence. Editors Kelley, Philip et al., Wedgestone Press.
3: 25
She strongly admired the...
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
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “The Doom of the Griffiths”. Harper’s Magazine, Vol.
16
, pp. 220-34.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press, 1967.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Smith, Elder, 1857.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin, 1975.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Birket Foster. The Moorland Cottage. Chapman and Hall, 1850.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “The Old Nurse’s Story”. Household Words, Vol.
extra christmas number
, pp. 11-20.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell. Editors Shattock, Joanne et al., Pickering and Chatto, 2005.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and George Du Maurier. Wives and Daughters. Smith, Elder, 1866.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Margaret Lane. Wives and Daughters. Dent, 1966.