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
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Margaret Kennedy
Here Kennedy argues that entertainment and enjoyment are valuable aims for the novel. She maintains that the novelist is, in essence, a storyteller, but the storyteller-novelist has been excluded by a literary society that devalues...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
While Charlotte Brontë , MEC argues, swept the world away in the storm of her passion and George Eliotconquered it with the power of understanding, [Elizabeth] Gaskell forced it to weep for pity [and]...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Michèle Roberts
This volume brings together pieces from various occasions and venues. In them MR discusses many of her favourite topics—the food, sex and god named in her title, the second and third often involving the relation...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text George Eliot
GE discounts the puffery that women authors receive from critics, claiming that praise of women's work is in inverse proportion to their ability: But if they are inclined to resent our plainness of speech, we...
Travel Mary Howitt
During their first year in Germany, the Howitts went on a tour along the Rhine, on which they were accompanied by Elizabeth Gaskell .
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London, 1992.
191
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, 1994.
631, 651, 653
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin, 1975.
417
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB visited Elizabeth Gaskell in Manchester on her way back to Haworth.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press, 1994.
681
Travel Charlotte Brontë
CB returned Gaskell 's visit with a four-day stay in Manchester.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press, 1994.
752
Travel Fredrika Bremer
Again her impressions were distinctly mixed. She enjoyed the tail-end of the Great Exhibition; she met George Eliot , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Charles Kingsley , as well as the William HowittHowitts ; but she was...

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