Elizabeth Gaskell

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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.
Photograph of a well-known head-and shoulders drawing of Elizabeth Gaskell by George Richmond, 1851. She looks calmly at the viewer, her smooth hair parted in the middle, with a ribbon or scarf hanging from her head and a bow at her neckline. She thought the drawing on the whole a good likeness. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses J. K. Rowling
Of course nobody could review this book without implicit or explicit reference to the Harry Potter books. What, some wondered, would devoted child readers make of the sex and swearing? The novel violently divided commentators...
Literary responses Christina Rossetti
Gabriel anticipated critics when he described Commonplace as a prose tale . . . rather in the Austen vein.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Editors Doughty, Oswald and John Robert Wahl, Clarendon Press.
2: 818
Contrasting Commonplace, and Other Short Stories with tawdry romance,
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2223 (1870): 734
the...
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...
Literary responses Flora Thompson
The Country Life reviewer wrote that the trilogy would take a permanent place in English letters for both its individual and social significance.
Lindsay, Gillian. Flora Thompson: The Story of the Lark Rise Writer. Hale.
163
Historian Sir Arthur Bryant put it on a level with Gaskell
Literary responses Florence Nightingale
Edward Cook and William John Bishop agree that although Notes is FN 's least read work, it is her most remarkable.
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 Setting Mary Louisa Molesworth
This novel is the story of an unhappy marriage. The male protagonist, mentioned twice in the title, proves not to be a good husband. The novel is set in Mallingford, an unflattering portrayal of Knutsford...
Material Conditions of Writing Mary Angela Dickens
The journal All the Year Round, founded by MAD 's grandfather and then edited by her father, was one of the first and most significant platforms for her short stories and serialized novels. Other...
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...
Material Conditions of Writing Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS used her earlier travels in Europe as material for a travel guide for Americans. She had met Germaine de Staël and Elizabeth Gaskell while in Europe, and had voraciously read everything by George Sand
Occupation Lucy Toulmin Smith
Manchester College (now Harris Manchester College ) had a long and distinguished history as a Dissenting institution (including spells at York and London) before it moved to Oxford in 1889 and into new buildings...
Occupation Richard Hengist Horne
Reports such as Horne's also provided writers of protest literature such as Benjamin Disraeli , Charles Dickens , and Elizabeth Gaskell with material which they incorporated into their fiction. Elizabeth Barrett 's The Cry of...
Occupation Eva Figes
EF had a long stint as co-editor of this series, which includes works on Margaret Atwood , Jane Austen , Elizabeth Bowen , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Frances Burney , Willa Cather , Colette ,...

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