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.
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
Textual Production
Charlotte Brontë
CB
's third novel, Villette, was published in three volumes, delayed at Elizabeth Gaskell
's request to avoid simultaneous publication with Ruth.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
715
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...
Residence
Charlotte Brontë
In early April 1820, the Brontës moved to Haworth, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where their father took up the position of perpetual curate. Despite the depiction of the village as an isolated...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
She and Gaskell
quickly established an epistolary friendship.
Shelston, Alan, and Elizabeth Gaskell. “Introduction”. The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Penguin, pp. 9-37.
11
death
Charlotte Brontë
Her body was placed in the family vault in Haworth Church on April 4. When Gaskell
heard of the circumstances of the death, she regretted she had not known; she would have hoped to save...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Numerous friends and acquaintances of CB
wrote tributes or obituaries which initiated the legend of the Brontës and Charlotte in particular: Harriet Martineau
in the Daily News on April 6; Matthew Arnold
in a short...
Material Conditions of Writing
Charlotte Brontë
CB
's stay in Brussels (as well as contributing eventually to Villette) produced a number of French exercises or devoirs, plus her subsequent letters to Constantin Heger
. Four of the letters (of which...
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...
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...
