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 Elizabeth Stone
Elizabeth Gaskell wrote that ES 's husband was a clergyman. Critic Michael Wheeler speculates that he was the Rev. Thomas Stone , whom ES would have met while he was the Curate of Deane...
Family and Intimate relationships Emily Brontë
His eventual position as a clergyman and published author in early nineteenth-century England was, given his background, a considerable accomplishment. Notwithstanding Elizabeth Gaskell 's portrait of him in her biography of his daughter as an...
Family and Intimate relationships Anne 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 Mary Augusta Ward
From the time of her arrival in England, a major influence on the young Mary Arnold (later MAW ) was her aunt and godmother Jane Arnold or Aunt K., a cultivated woman and friend...
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...
Friends, Associates Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP knew personally and corresponded with many of the Victorian intelligentsia. In addition to her Langham Place associates already mentioned, her literary friends and acquaintances included Matilda Hays , Harriet Martineau , Anthony Trollope ,...
Friends, Associates Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ 's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell developed out of Gaskell's letter request for an autograph note. ABJ was supportive during the scandal over Gaskell's Ruth, and advised her on the composition of North and South.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press, 1967.
203
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber, 1993.
339, 368
Friends, Associates Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell visited CB at Haworth for four days.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press, 1994.
738
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.
qtd. in
Skabarnicki, Anne M. “Two Faces of Eve: The Literary Personae of Harriet Martineau and Jane Welsh Carlyle”. The Carlyle Annual, Vol.
11
, 1990, pp. 15-30.
20

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.