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
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 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, 1984–2025, 14 vols. to date.
3: 25
She strongly admired the...
Intertextuality and Influence Annie Keary
She took as implicit motto for all her own writings the words from Thomas Carlyle 's Biography (on the foolishness of both writer and subject) with which Elizabeth Gaskell prefaced Mary Barton.
Keary, Eliza. Memoir of Annie Keary. Macmillan, 1882.
196
Intertextuality and Influence Emily Gerard
The book deals with the usual topics of travel writing: history, tradition, peasant life, and scenery, with a lucid exposition of the politics of the region.
Gerard, Emily. The Land Beyond the Forest. W. Blackwood and Sons, 1888, 2 vols.
1: 21ff
It includes attractive personal reminiscence. EG 's...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Martineau
The novel prompted a complimentary letter on 7 November 1849 from Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë ) saying that in it he tasted a new and keen pleasure, and experienced a genuine benefit. In his...
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...
Literary responses Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
Elizabeth Gaskell later reported that reviews had been good.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press, 1967.
527
The Athenæum notice, by Geraldine Jewsbury , was moderately favourable, but by calling it the work of a beginner,
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1593 (1858): 593
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
654 (1840): 371-2
Literary responses George Eliot
On the whole reviewers were enthusiastic (E. S. Dallas began his notice in the Times, George Eliot is as great as ever
qtd. in
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble, 1971.
131
), but the ending of The Mill on the Floss...
Literary responses Fredrika Bremer
Elizabeth Gaskell reported that Charlotte Brontë saw a resemblance (as Gaskell herself did not) between Fransiska and Jane Eyre.
Asmundsson, Doris R. Fredrika Bremer in England. Columbia University, 1964.
102
 The Athenæum was troubled that Bruno should be guilty of so much evil and still...
Literary responses Dinah Mulock Craik
Some felt she wrote too much too fast. Elizabeth Gaskell commented in a letter of 1851, I wish she had some other means of support than writing, which must be pumped up instead of bubbling...
Literary responses Elizabeth Rigby
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 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, 1913, 2 vols.
343
Bishop, William John, and Sue Goldie. A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale. Dawsons for the International Council of Nurses, 1962.
52
On 31 December 1858Elizabeth Gaskell said of the second volume:...
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 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, 1992.
157n12
Robert Liddell , who had been familiar with it throughout...

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