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.

Connections

Connections Author name Sort descending Excerpt
Textual Features Isabella Banks
IB describes the same industrial, working-class Manchester that novelists like Elizabeth Gaskell and social investigators like Friedrich Engels and Dr James P. Kay-Shuttleworth had already made famous in works such as Gaskell's Mary Barton...
Textual Features Isabella Banks
The novel's heroine, Muriel D'Anyer, comes from the manufacturing middle class of Manchester that IB herself was born into. Muriel is educated by her energetic grandmother, Sarah Bancroft, who successfully runs the family business. In...
Publishing Isabella Banks
She continued writing for Notes and Queries until 1897, on a range of topics usually relating to Manchester as she had known it in her youth. Article titles included Street Lighting in Manchester Before Gas...
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Literary admirers of the hymns included Hannah More , Anna Seward , and Elizabeth Carter , who found some passages amazingly sublime.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
193
The innumerable children who loved and later remembered them included Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
Textual Production Patricia Beer
PB 's Reader, I Married Him: A Study of the Women Characters of Jane Austen , Charlotte Brontë , Elizabeth Gaskell , and George Eliot was a harbinger of serious critical interest in the women's literary tradition.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.
Sherry, Vincent B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 40. Gale Research.
25
Textual Features Patricia Beer
PB here considers a series of canonical authors, Austen , Eliot , Charlotte Brontë , and Elizabeth Gaskell , and the way that the Woman Question was handled in fiction. Critic John Mullan notes her...
Education Jessie Boucherett
JB was educated at the Misses Byerleys' ladies' school, Avonbank, Stratford upon Avon. Elizabeth Gaskell had attended the same school.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
“Obituary: Miss Emilia Jessie Boucherett”. Times, p. 8.
Textual Production Elizabeth Bowen
EB contributed a perceptive
British Book News. British Council.
(1952): 343
introduction to a new edition (from John Lehmann 's Chiltern Library ) of Gaskell 's North and South.
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Elizabeth Braddon
There are occasional moments of wit, as when destitution reveals that the family servants think terms of practical life rather than sentimental fiction: the old-fashioned type of servant, who appears so frequently in Morton 's...
Textual Features Vera Brittain
In her Prologue, VB cited Mrs Gaskell 's Life of Charlotte Brontë as an influence. She also lamented the absence of positive representations of female friendship: I hope that Winifred's story may do something to...
Friends, Associates Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell initiated her friendship with CB by her sympathetic comments about the sickbed scenes in Shirley.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
615
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB visited her neighbours Sir James and Lady Kay-Shuttleworth in the Lake District, where she met Elizabeth Gaskell .
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
631, 651, 653
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin.
417
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB visited Elizabeth Gaskell in Manchester on her way back to Haworth.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
681
Friends, Associates Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell visited CB at Haworth for four days.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
738
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB returned Gaskell 's visit with a four-day stay in Manchester.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
752

Timeline

14 September 1767: Midwife Elizabeth Brownrigg was hanged at...

Building item

14 September 1767

Midwife Elizabeth Brownrigg was hanged at Tyburn (in London near the present Marble Arch) for the murder of Mary Clifford , a workhouse apprentice.

1825: Frances Parkes (Mrs. William Parkes 1786-1842),...

Women writers item

1825

Frances Parkes (Mrs. William Parkes 1786-1842), published a highly successful domesticconduct book whose lengthy title begins Domestic Duties; or, Instructions to Young Married Ladies.

1837: Fredrika Bremer published her domestic novel...

Writing climate item

1837

Fredrika Bremer published her domestic novelGrannarne, translated into English in 1842 as Neighbours.

December 1839: Thomas Carlyle published his essay Chartism,...

Writing climate item

December 1839

Thomas Carlyle published his essayChartism, bearing the date of 1840.

Late Summer 1842: The Plug Riots, with significant participation...

National or international item

Late Summer 1842

The Plug Riots, with significant participation by women, occurred in the northern industrial region of England when workers rebelled against inadequate wages.

March 1848: Chartist uprisings took place in London,...

National or international item

March 1848

Chartist uprisings took place in London, Glasgow, and Manchester.

14 March 1856: A petition for Reform of the Married Women's...

National or international item

14 March 1856

A petitionfor Reform of the Married Women's Property Law, organized by the Married Women's Property Committee and signed by many prominent women, was presented to both Houses of Parliament.

By 20 June 1857: W. W. Carus Wilson published A Refutation...

Writing climate item

By 20 June 1857

W. W. Carus Wilson published A Refutation of the Statements in The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Regarding the Caterton Clergy Daughters' School when at Cowan Bridge.

10 April 1858: An advertisement for Mudie's Circulating...

Writing climate item

10 April 1858

An advertisement for Mudie's Circulating Library boasted of its vast holdings of popular titles.

January 1859: W. R. Greg's essay "False Morality of Lady...

Writing climate item

January 1859

W. R. Greg 's essay"False Morality of Lady Novelists" was published in the National Review in London.

March-June 1864: William Makepeace Thackeray's final, unfinished...

Writing climate item

March-June 1864

William Makepeace Thackeray 's final, unfinished novel, Denis Duval, appeared in Cornhill Magazine.

May 1992: The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British...

Women writers item

May 1992

The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Association held its first annual conference. Thereafter the conference was held at a different American location each year.
Parker, Pamela Corpron. “A Conference of Our Own: on the 20th Anniversary of the BWWA”. The Female Spectator, Vol.
16
, No. 1, p. 6.
6

Texts

Gaskell, Elizabeth. A Dark Night’s Work. Smith, Elder, 1863.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cousin Phillis and Other Tales. Smith, Elder, 1865.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cranford. Chapman and Hall, 1853.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Cranford; Cousin Phillis. Editor Keating, Peter John, Penguin, 1986.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “Editorial Materials”. Mary Barton, edited by Jennifer Foster, Broadview, 2000, p. Various pages.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Anna Walters. Elizabeth Gaskell - Four Short Stories. Pandora Press, 1983.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Further Letters of Mrs. Gaskell. Editors Chapple, John and Alan Shelston, Manchester University Press, 2000.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Gothic Tales. Editor Kranzler, Laura, Penguin, 2000.
Shelston, Alan, and Elizabeth Gaskell. “Introduction”. The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Penguin, 1975, pp. 9-37.
Walters, Anna, and Elizabeth Gaskell. “Introduction”. Elizabeth Gaskell - Four Short Stories, Pandora Press, 1983, pp. 1-22.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “Introduction”. Cranford; Cousin Phillis, edited by Peter John Keating, Penguin, 1986, pp. 7-30.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras”. Howitt’s Journal of Literature and Popular Progress, Vol.
1
, pp. 310 - 13, 334.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales. Chapman and Hall, 1855.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Chapman and Hall, 1848.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton. Editor Foster, Jennifer, Broadview, 2000.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Anita Miller. My Lady Ludlow. Academy Chicago, 1995.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. My Lady Ludlow and Other Tales. Sampson and Low, 1861.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Chapman and Hall, 1855.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South. Editor Easson, Angus, Oxford University Press, 1973.
Miller, Anita, and Elizabeth Gaskell. “Preface and Chronology”. My Lady Ludlow, Academy Chicago, 1995, pp. 7-10.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Sophia Isaac Holland. Private Voices. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Anita Wilson, Keele University Press, 1996.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Chapman and Hall, 1853.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth. Editor Shelston, Alan, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Sylvia’s Lovers. Smith, Elder, 1863.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Arthur Pollard. Sylvia’s Lovers. Dent, 1964.