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.
JW
was an energetic letter writer. Her letters to Emelia Russell Gurney
, which cover an eleven-year span beginning in 1865, were collected by Gurney's niece in 1902. Wedgwood's sketch of Linlathen (Thomas Erskine
Textual Features
George Eliot
This story is equally remarkable for the portraits of Mr Tryan (the Evangelical clergyman who not only converts Janet to his beliefs but succeeds in sparking her will to regeneration) and of Janet herself, but...
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Elizabeth Robins
ER
's novel White Violets, or, Great Powers, which she wrote in 1909 (just after the first unexpurgated appearance of Elizabeth Gaskell
's life of Charlotte Brontë
), remained unpublished, for reasons that are...
GC
also published shorter fiction in a number of journals. This included Alwyn's First Wife for Fraser's Magazine in 1855, A Sketch of Two Homes and the sensational tale My Sister's Husband in 1857 for...
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Mary Howitt
Notable among MH
's large fictional output are didactic stories like Johnny Derbyshire, a Country Quaker (written jointly with her husband). She and Elizabeth Gaskell
swapped ghost stories by letter, but MH
would not encourage...
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Edna Lyall
The contributors to Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign, 1897, included EL
, who wrote for it a piece on Elizabeth Gaskell
.
Payne, George A. "Edna Lyall:" an Appreciation. John Heywood.
17
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Mary Howitt
The title of the series (used in the Bodleian
though not in the British Library
catalogue) was Tales for the People and their Children. Following the British Libary dating (since authorities differ) MC's own...
This venture seems to have sprung from William's brief, financially damaging involvement in The People's Journal, 1846-8, whose chaotic business practices were a serious handicap to its programme for rendering workers prudent, sober, independent...
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Annie Keary
AK
's next novel, Oldbury, was compared by some critics to Gaskell
's Cranford, because it is a study of a small provincial community, a backwater out of the mainstream.
The Spectator. F. C. Westley.
42 (1869): 683
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Charlotte Brontë
CB
's third novel, Villette, was published in three volumes, delayed at Elizabeth Gaskell
's request to avoid simultaneous publication with Ruth.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
715
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May Sinclair
Her introductions to Jane Eyre and Shirley followed in February 1908, that to Elizabeth Gaskell
's The Life of Charlotte Brontë in June 1908, and those for Villette, The Professor, and The Tenant...
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Anna Jane Vardill
Tabby-Hall, as a community of unattached women, was invented by members of the Attic Chest circle run by Eleanor Anne Porden
.
Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
4
, No. 1-2.
n42
It fits somewhere between Sarah Scott
's idealised Millenium Hall and Elizabeth Gaskell
