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 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. Oxford University Press.
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 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.
Skabarnicki, Anne M. “Two Faces of Eve: The Literary Personae of Harriet Martineau and Jane Welsh Carlyle”. The Carlyle Annual, Vol.
11
, pp. 15-30.
20
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 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.
28
Friends, Associates Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell visited CB at Haworth for four days.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
738
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...
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 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...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence George Eliot
Much feminist interest in the novel has centered on the relationship between Felix and Esther Lyon and the novel's treatment of the relationship between women and the public sphere. The book is in many ways...

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