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
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...
Friends, Associates Sara Coleridge
Among women writers, in addition to Dorothy Wordsworth , Joanna Baillie , and Maria Jane Jewsbury , SC also knew Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Anna Jameson , Elizabeth Rigby , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Harriet Martineau
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 Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn met a number of women authors who were once applauded but later complacently forgotten . . . . as literary fossils.
Linton, Eliza Lynn, and Beatrice Harraden. My Literary Life. Hodder and Stoughton.
85
She contended that Women who wrote were then few and far...
Friends, Associates Jane Loudon
As well as horticultural and artistic friends and associates, JL and her husband had literary friends, who included Robert Chambers and his wife Anne , Elizabeth Gaskell , Mary Howitt , Julia Kavanagh , Charles Dickens
Friends, Associates Eliza Meteyard
She became connected through her writing to Douglas Jerrold , Mary and William Howitt , and Harriet Martineau .
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
The difficulties of social life for unattached women are visible in her regret and anxiety over...
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.
9
In her later years, MT disapproved of the...
Health Emily Brontë
EB apparently had a very independent character. In a famous incident related to Elizabeth Gaskell by Charlotte , Emily tried to help a possibly rabid dog, only to have it bite her. She immediately went...
Intertextuality and Influence Edna Lyall
A Hardy Norseman makes honorific reference to Elizabeth Gaskell 's Wives and Daughters. Though it is largely set in Norway (convincingly portrayed), a crucial meeting takes place at Hyde Park Corner in London...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Barrett Browning
By 1832 she had read Mme de Staël 's novel of the romantic female artist, Corinne, three times and claimed the immortal book ought to be reread annually.
Browning, Robert, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The Brownings’ Correspondence. Editors Kelley, Philip et al., Wedgestone Press.
3: 25
She strongly admired the...
Intertextuality and Influence Annie Keary
She took as implicit motto for all her own writings the words from Thomas Carlyle 's Biography (on the foolishness of both writer and subject) with which Elizabeth Gaskell prefaced Mary Barton.
Keary, Eliza. Memoir of Annie Keary. Macmillan.
196
Intertextuality and Influence Emily Gerard
The book deals with the usual topics of travel writing: history, tradition, peasant life, and scenery, with a lucid exposition of the politics of the region.
Gerard, Emily. The Land Beyond the Forest. W. Blackwood and Sons.
1: 21ff
It includes attractive personal reminiscence. EG 's...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Martineau
The novel prompted a complimentary letter on 7 November 1849 from Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë ) saying that in it he tasted a new and keen pleasure, and experienced a genuine benefit. In his...
Intertextuality and Influence Jane West
This work had the unusual distinction of earning approving comments from both Austen and Wollstonecraft . The contrasted sisters are generally seen as an important source for Austen 's Sense and Sensibility, and the...
Intertextuality and Influence Susan Hill
The story is set in the imaginary, sheltered village of Haverstock, which might be seen as a descendant of Elizabeth Gaskell 's Cranford. It opens with the funeral of an unmarried woman who has two...

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