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.
Along with The Wrongs of Woman, Helen Fleetwood is the best known title in CET
's extensive oeuvre. It is often included in critical discussions of Victorian industrial fiction, along with Gaskell
's Mary...
Reception
Geraldine Jewsbury
Many readers, including George Henry Lewes
, were suspicious of this novel's sympathetic portrait of manufacturers, and speculated that Marian Withers was Jewsbury's response to Elizabeth Gaskell
's Mary Barton, which had presented factory...
Reception
Charlotte Maria Tucker
CMT
, whose works sold very well, was regarded as a major female author during the mid-Victorian period. She was incensed when in 1882 some one wrote a sketch of her life, and requested her...
Reception
Mary Howitt
MH
's biographer Joy Dunicliff
credits her with introducing the reading public to both Keats
and Gaskell
.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London.
1
Reception
Anne Marsh
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes AM
's very high contemporary reputation. It cites the London Weekly Chronicle and Margaret Oliphant
each hailing her, in her heyday, as a leader among women novelists (though...
Reception
Julia Wedgwood
Her father discouraged her from writing any more fiction after this. She abandoned a third novel, notwithstanding Elizabeth Gaskell
's urging her to continue.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Reception
Flora Macdonald Mayor
The novel established FMM
's reputation for precise use of prose,
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
60741 (4 October 1980): 8
received good reviews, and very nearly won the Polignac Prize.
Williams, Merryn. Six Women Novelists, Macmillan.
45
FMM
was judged sensitive yet detached, firm and...
Publishing
Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
Her friend Elizabeth Gaskell
wrote to George Smith
of Smith, Elder
on 10 February 1859 to urge him to publish this novel, which, however, she declared she had not read. He sent her a copy...
Publishing
Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
From two undated letters of Elizabeth Gaskell
, it seems that Gaskell recommended to William Chambers
the serialization of one of HCJ
's works in Chambers's Journal.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press.
942, 809
Publishing
Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL
made her views known to the public through the columns of the Times on a variety of political and literary issues: women's suffrage, food rationing during the first world war (on which she offered...
Publishing
Georgiana Chatterton
She had signed the agreement with her publisher, Richard Bentley
, on 4 December 1861.
“The Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton”. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
She says that she set out here rather to give the value of the words than their scholastic or critically...
Publishing
Isabella Banks
She continued writing for Notes and Queries until 1897, on a range of topics usually relating to Manchester as she had known it in her youth. Article titles included Street Lighting in Manchester Before Gas...
Publishing
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
MEC
's essay Mrs. Gaskell appeared in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement.
Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth. “Memoir and Editorial Materials”. Gathered Leaves from the Prose of Mary E. Coleridge, edited by Edith Sichel, Constable, pp. 1 - 44; various pages.
186n1
Publishing
Dinah Mulock Craik
Dinah Mulock
implicitly attacked Elizabeth Gaskell
's Life of Charlotte Brontë in Literary Ghouls for Chambers's.
Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Twayne.
100, 129n7
Publishing
Mary Linskill
One of the pieces in this volume, Cornborough Vicarage was said in the Feminist Companion to have been serialized in Good Words, but Stamp thinks it unlikely that any of the volume's contents had...
