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.
Their relocation was, however, only partly due to consideration for her health. One scholar notes that during their residence at Oxford, in a community dominated by distinguished intellectuals [JB
] was merely the wife...
Friends, Associates
Jane Welsh Carlyle
Some time after 1835 the Carlyles met Harriet Martineau
. While Martineau took to Thomas, she found Jane coquettish and disliked her tendency to interrupt abstract philosophical conversations with little jokes & wanting notice.
Skabarnicki, Anne M. “Two Faces of Eve: The Literary Personae of Harriet Martineau and Jane Welsh Carlyle”. The Carlyle Annual, Vol.
Surtees, Virginia. Jane Welsh Carlyle. Michael Russell.
205
Publishing
Georgiana Chatterton
She had signed the agreement with her publisher, Richard Bentley
, on 4 December 1861.
“The Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton”. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
She says that she set out here rather to give the value of the words than their scholastic or critically...
Friends, Associates
Mary Cowden Clarke
In addition to meeting Dickens
as a result of her theatrical activities, MCC
and her husband met William Hazlitt
through a shared duty of theatre reviewing, and she became friends with Mary Howitt
, and...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Clive
Lady Byron
was another of the Clives' acquaintances. Following a visit in 1843, CC
wrote: That is the woman that has been tossed about by such vehement passions, by contact with such a fiery nature...
Publishing
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
MEC
's essay Mrs. Gaskell appeared in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement.
Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth. “Memoir and Editorial Materials”. Gathered Leaves from the Prose of Mary E. Coleridge, edited by Edith Sichel, Constable, pp. 1 - 44; various pages.
186n1
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
While Charlotte Brontë
, MEC
argues, swept the world away in the storm of her passion and George Eliotconquered it with the power of understanding, [Elizabeth] Gaskell
forced it to weep for pity [and]...
IC
's article has a documentary feel typical of much social investigation literature, particularly the seamstress narrative popularized by writers such as Thomas Hood
, Henry Mayhew
, and Elizabeth Gaskell
in her novel Ruth...
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...
Textual Production
Georgiana Craik
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...
Publishing
Dinah Mulock Craik
Dinah Mulock
implicitly attacked Elizabeth Gaskell
's Life of Charlotte Brontë in Literary Ghouls for Chambers's.
Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Twayne.
100, 129n7
Textual Features
Ella D'Arcy
A young Roman Catholic priest ministers to a tiny parish in the fictional south-coast town of Hattering. His patroness, Lady Welford, is dictatorial; his housekeeper, Mrs Lucas, is a bad cook, weakly indecisive, and sometimes...
