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
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 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 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 Fredrika Bremer
Elizabeth Gaskell reported that Charlotte Brontë saw a resemblance (as Gaskell herself did not) between Fransiska and Jane Eyre.
Asmundsson, Doris R. Fredrika Bremer in England. Columbia University, 1964.
102
 The Athenæum was troubled that Bruno should be guilty of so much evil and still...
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...
Literary responses Dinah Mulock Craik
Some felt she wrote too much too fast. Elizabeth Gaskell commented in a letter of 1851, I wish she had some other means of support than writing, which must be pumped up instead of bubbling...
Literary responses Elizabeth Rigby
Brontë also indulged in assumptions about gender and class in her reading of the critique. She wrote: I read The Quarterly without a pang, except that I thought there were some sentences disgraceful to the...
Literary responses Florence Nightingale
Edward Cook and William John Bishop agree that although Notes is FN 's least read work, it is her most remarkable.
Cook, Edward. The Life of Florence Nightingale. Macmillan, 1913, 2 vols.
343
Bishop, William John, and Sue Goldie. A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale. Dawsons for the International Council of Nurses, 1962.
52
On 31 December 1858Elizabeth Gaskell said of the second volume:...
Literary responses Emily Brontë
Since the early criticism which took its lead from Charlotte's biographical portrait, a biographical and hagiographic industry has arisen around all three Brontë sisters and their home in Haworth. A. Mary F. Robinson published...
Literary responses Barbara Pym
BP 's father wrote to her on 3 May 1950 commending this novel, which he had not expected to enjoy since he preferred mysteries.
Wyatt-Brown, Anne M. Barbara Pym: A Critical Biography. University of Missouri Press, 1992.
157n12
Robert Liddell , who had been familiar with it throughout...
Literary Setting Mary Louisa Molesworth
This novel is the story of an unhappy marriage. The male protagonist, mentioned twice in the title, proves not to be a good husband. The novel is set in Mallingford, an unflattering portrayal of Knutsford...
Material Conditions of Writing Mary Angela Dickens
The journal All the Year Round, founded by MAD 's grandfather and then edited by her father, was one of the first and most significant platforms for her short stories and serialized novels. Other...
Material Conditions of Writing Harriet Beecher Stowe
HBS used her earlier travels in Europe as material for a travel guide for Americans. She had met Germaine de Staël and Elizabeth Gaskell while in Europe, and had voraciously read everything by George Sand
Material Conditions of Writing Charlotte Brontë
CB 's stay in Brussels (as well as contributing eventually to Villette) produced a number of French exercises or devoirs, plus her subsequent letters to Constantin Heger . Four of the letters (of which...
Occupation Selina Davenport
During her marriage SD worked at running a school, which, however, was far from profitable. She also supported her daughters through her writing, and opened another unsuccessful school at Greenwich after she left her husband....

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