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
Family and Intimate relationships John Ruskin
The next year she married her husband's protégé the painter John Everett Millais . Rumours of an affair between Effie and Millais, and gossip surrounding the annulment, produced speculation and scandal. Elizabeth Gaskell sided with...
Family and Intimate relationships Q. D. Leavis
The Roths were devastated by their daughter's decision to marry a gentile. They disowned her and ceased to give her any financial support. However, this period had its happy moments as well. Q. D. introduced...
Family and Intimate relationships Charlotte Brontë
Patrick Brontë was an Irish protestant from a large respectable farming family of limited means. He took to books from an early age, opened a school for the gentry at the age of sixteen, became...
Family and Intimate relationships Amabel Williams-Ellis
AWE 's mother, Henrietta Mary Amy (Simpson) Strachey , known as Amy, was born in 1866 and married John St Loe Strachey in 1887. She contributed about twenty pieces to The Spectator between 1900 and...
Friends, Associates Dinah Mulock Craik
Their circle of friends included the critic and historian George Lillie Craik , Camilla Toulmin , John Westland Marston , Alexander Macmillan (the publisher), Charles Edward Mudie (founder of Mudie's Lending Library ), and the...
Friends, Associates Mary Howitt
Visitors who stayed with the Howitts at The Elms included Hans Christian Andersen , Tennyson , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Eliza Meteyard , who wrote as Silver Pen. Their circle also included Charles Dickens
Friends, Associates Geraldine Jewsbury
Elizabeth Gaskell was also a visitor, friend, and neighbour. Returning one of her visits, GJ was reportedly found sitting on the floor of Gaskell's drawing-room, reading aloud from Charles Lamb 's The Essays of Elia.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
23
Friends, Associates Florence Nightingale
In this year, 1854, Elizabeth Gaskell visited the Nightingales' Derbyshire home, Lea Hurst, and stayed on there to write when the family left for Embley Park.
Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale. Macmillan, 1913, 2 vols.
8n1, 39, 139
Having met FN at...
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 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, 1994.
615
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, 1999, 2 vols.
2: 699
At first meeting, Fletcher did not...
Friends, Associates Flora Shaw
Here she became a friend of novelist and neighbour George Meredith , who introduced her to a wider social circle, including W.T. Stead , the scandalous journalist and editor of the Pall Mall Gazette...
Friends, Associates Beatrix Potter
Friends constituted another bright spot in her life. One early mentor was the Rev. William Gaskell , whose death in June 1884 was the occasion of moralising in her journal about loss and change.
Grinstein, Alexander. The Remarkable Beatrix Potter. International Universities Press, 1995.
28
Friends, Associates John Forster
JF was well connected in literary circles. He counted Elizabeth Gaskell , Lady Blessington , Jane Welsh Carlyle , Charles Dickens , Edward Bulwer Lytton and Leigh Hunt among his intimates.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
Friends, Associates Selina Davenport
As well as Jane Porter , SD had some acquaintance with Elizabeth Gaskell , who wrote a letter (formal in tone, dated 26 April 1854) in support of her RLF application. She wrote in the...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Arthur Pollard. Sylvia’s Lovers. Dent, 1964.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “The Doom of the Griffiths”. Harper’s Magazine, Vol.
16
, 1858, pp. 220-34.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press, 1967.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Smith, Elder, 1857, 2 vols.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin, 1975.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Birket Foster. The Moorland Cottage. Chapman and Hall, 1850.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. “The Old Nurse’s Story”. Household Words, Vol.
extra christmas number
, 1852, pp. 11-20.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell. Editors Shattock, Joanne et al., Pickering and Chatto, 2005, 10 vols.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and George Du Maurier. Wives and Daughters. Smith, Elder, 1866, 2 vols.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, and Margaret Lane. Wives and Daughters. Dent, 1966.