Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
He gradually lost faith in High Church
tenets, however, a process that intensified under the influence of Thomas Carlyle
. JAF
was forced to relinquish his fellowship on publishing The Nemesis of Faith (1849), and...
Author summary
Jessie Fothergill
During her relatively short career in the later nineteenth century, Jessie Fothergill
produced fourteen novels, many of which ran to several editions and appeared in Indian and Australian journals,
She acquired much knowledge through her voracious consumption of books: I loved books, and read all that I could get hold of, and have had many a rebuke for poring over those books instead of...
Textual Features
Jessie Fothergill
Of particular interest is JF
's handling of the benefits of cross-class mutual aid and moral principle
Debenham, Helen. “’Almost always two sides to a question’: the novels of Jessie Fothergill”. Popular Victorian Women Writers, edited by Kay Boardman and Shirley Jones, Manchester University Press, pp. 66-89.
76
as rich and poor, male and female, employer and workers, civil authorities and landowners join forces against...
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Friends, Associates
Eliza Fletcher
Hamilton, herself a conservative, set about de-demonizing EF
's political reputation. She had good success in persuading her friends that Mrs Fletcher was not the ferocious Democrat she had been represented, and that she neither...
Friends, Associates
Eliza Fletcher
Joanna Baillie
(a well qualified judge) thought few people have so many friends as EF
, and that they all warmly esteemed as well as loving her.
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
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...
Friends, Associates
George Eliot
Some of her closest friends were prominent feminists, and they were among those soonest willing to flout convention and visit her after her union to Lewes.
Despite the social and spiritual gulf between them, GE
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
George Eliot
GE
discounts the puffery that women authors receive from critics, claiming that praise of women's work is in inverse proportion to their ability: But if they are inclined to resent our plainness of speech, we...
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...
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
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble.
131
), but the ending of The Mill on the Floss...
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...
Textual Features
Isak Dinesen
Stambaugh remarks that all the stories here are studies, specifically, of women's destinies.
Stambaugh, Sara. The Witch and the Goddess in the Stories of Isak Dinesen. UMI Research Press.
28
The final, short one, The Ring, concerns a young woman, Lovisa, whose idyllic, clandestine courtship has recently ended in marriage...
