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.
Critic Monica Correa Fryckstedt
considers ESthe first Manchester resident to write a novel about the manufacturing districts . . . . she conveys a vivid picture of the rising Lancashire cottonocracy.
Fryckstedt, Monica Correa. “The Early Industrial Novel: <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Mary Barton</span> and Its Predecessors”. Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol.
63
, No. 1, The Library, pp. 11-30.
17-18
In the...
Friends, Associates
Harriet Beecher Stowe
While visiting Paris, HBS
frequented the salon of Germaine de Staël
, and in Rome she met Elizabeth Gaskell
. In a letter to Grace Schwabe
, Gaskell remarked that Stowe was short and...
Material Conditions of Writing
Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS
used her earlier travels in Europe as material for a travel guide for Americans. She had met Germaine de Staël
and Elizabeth Gaskell
while in Europe, and had voraciously read everything by George Sand
Cultural formation
Hesba Stretton
As an adult HS
abandoned her mother
's strict Methodism
and became an incurable sermon-taster. She favoured several denominations at the extreme of Protestantism. During the twelve-year period recorded in her Log Books only three...
Friends, Associates
Mary Taylor
When Elizabeth Gaskell
wrote to MT
in 1855 seeking information for her Life of Charlotte Brontë, Taylor responded with two letters from which Gaskell quoted.
Taylor, Mary. Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere. Editor Stevens, Joan, Auckland University Press; Oxford University Press.
The Country Life reviewer wrote that the trilogy would take a permanent place in English letters for both its individual and social significance.
Lindsay, Gillian. Flora Thompson: The Story of the Lark Rise Writer. Hale.
163
Historian Sir Arthur Bryant
put it on a level with Gaskell
Reception
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
Along with The Wrongs of Woman, Helen Fleetwood is the best known title in CET
's extensive oeuvre. It is often included in critical discussions of Victorian industrial fiction, along with Gaskell
's Mary...
Literary responses
Anthony Trollope
AT
's reputation grew steadily over the appearance of these novels. Elizabeth Gaskell
wrote: I wish Mr. Trollope would go on writing Framley Parsonage for ever.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Reception
Charlotte Maria Tucker
CMT
, whose works sold very well, was regarded as a major female author during the mid-Victorian period. She was incensed when in 1882 some one wrote a sketch of her life, and requested her...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Tytler
Clearly delighted with the opportunity to mix in literary circles, ST
recorded her personal observations of these authors in Men and Women Met by the Way, the final 100-page-long section of her family autobiography...
Residence
Alison Uttley
AU
and her husband first settled in the seventeenth-century Old Vicarage at Knutsford in Cheshire. Knutsford was, of course, the setting of Elizabeth Gaskell
's Cranford, and to AU
's delight, the Old...
Textual Production
Anna Jane Vardill
Tabby-Hall, as a community of unattached women, was invented by members of the Attic Chest circle run by Eleanor Anne Porden
.
Snell, Susan. “Enlightenment Females and Freemasonry”. Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, Vol.
4
, No. 1-2.
n42
It fits somewhere between Sarah Scott
's idealised Millenium Hall and Elizabeth Gaskell
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
Julia Wedgwood
Sixteen-year-old JW
visited the holidaying Gaskell
family at Skelwith in Little Langdale, near Ambleside in the Lake District.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
