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
Intertextuality and Influence Anna Mary Howitt
Anna Mary Howitt published An Art-Student in Munich, written on the advice of her mother, Mary Howitt , and of Elizabeth Gaskell .
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement. Virago, 1989.
41
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1333 (1853): 584-5
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 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...
Intertextuality and Influence U. A. Fanthorpe
With this volume, says UAF , I entered the different world of S. Martin's, Lancaster, and of France; and I was just beginning to have things to say about the condition of women...
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, 1984–2025, 14 vols. to date.
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, 1882.
196
Literary responses Anna Letitia Barbauld
Literary admirers of the hymns included Hannah More , Anna Seward , and Elizabeth Carter , who found some passages amazingly sublime.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
193
The innumerable children who loved and later remembered them included Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck
Literary responses Anna Brownell Jameson
A Commonplace Book was reviewed by the Literary Gazette, the Athenæum (by Henry Fothergill Chorley ), The Spectator and Gentleman's Magazine.
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press, 1997.
47
Elizabeth Gaskell pronounced herself in a letter to ABJ delighted with its graceful suggestive wisdom.
qtd. in
Jameson, Anna Brownell. Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships (1812-1860). Editor Erskine, Beatrice Caroline, T. Fisher Unwin, 1915.
295
Literary responses Flora Thompson
The Country Life reviewer wrote that the trilogy would take a permanent place in English letters for both its individual and social significance.
qtd. in
Lindsay, Gillian. Flora Thompson: The Story of the Lark Rise Writer. Hale, 1996.
163
Historian Sir Arthur Bryant put it on a level with Gaskell
Literary responses J. K. Rowling
Of course nobody could review this book without implicit or explicit reference to the Harry Potter books. What, some wondered, would devoted child readers make of the sex and swearing? The novel violently divided commentators...
Literary responses Isabella Neil Harwood
This novel generated a large amount of attention and positive reviews. They all made some points in common: they loved the plot, the way Minnie/Minna's character developed, the originality and the sustained interest it provided...
Literary responses Christina Rossetti
Gabriel anticipated critics when he described Commonplace as a prose tale . . . rather in the Austen vein.
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Editors Doughty, Oswald and John Robert Wahl, Clarendon Press, 1965–1967, 4 vols.
2: 818
Contrasting Commonplace, and Other Short Stories with tawdry romance,
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2223 (1870): 734
the...
Literary responses Charlotte O'Conor Eccles
Once again reviewers (as quoted at the back of The Matrimonial Lottery) were delighted with these [c]lever studies of Irish life and character. The Athenæum praised especially those stories which reflected first-hand knowledge (with...
Literary responses Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
Elizabeth Gaskell later reported that reviews had been good.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press, 1967.
527
The Athenæum notice, by Geraldine Jewsbury , was moderately favourable, but by calling it the work of a beginner,
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1593 (1858): 593
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
654 (1840): 371-2
Literary responses George Eliot
On the whole reviewers were enthusiastic (E. S. Dallas began his notice in the Times, George Eliot is as great as ever
qtd. in
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble, 1971.
131
), but the ending of The Mill on the Floss...

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