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.
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
Residence
Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ
and her brother Frank
first set up house at 4 Lloyd Street in Manchester. They then, in 1843, moved to 30 Carlton Terrace, Greenheys Lane in a village called Greenheys, near Manchester...
Friends, Associates
Geraldine Jewsbury
Elizabeth Gaskell
was also a visitor, friend, and neighbour. Returning one of her visits, GJ
was reportedly found sitting on the floor of Gaskell's drawing-room, reading aloud from Charles Lamb
's The Essays of Elia.
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin.
23
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...
GJ
was an advocate of realist novels with well drawn characters and a coherent plot. Her review of Charlotte Chanter
's Over the Cliffs compared the plot to a child's attempt at drawing a picture,—the...
EJ
contributed an introduction to a volume, the seventh in John Lehmann
's The Chiltern Library, published in 1947 and containing two titles by Elizabeth Gaskell
. In her introduction to Thackeray
's Vanity...
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
Friends, Associates
Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
In Manchester HCJ
became by 1854 a friend of Elizabeth Gaskell
, who helped her with publishing business.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Letters of Mrs Gaskell. Editors Chapple, J. A. V. and Arthur Pollard, Harvard University Press.
286
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Fleeming Jenkin. “Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin”. Papers, Literary, Scientific, &c., edited by Sir Sidney Colvin et al., Longmans, Green, p. 1: xi - clxx.
li
To the future writer Vernon Lee
she acted as literary mentor. In July 1871 she...
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.
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
Friends, Associates
Anna Brownell Jameson
ABJ
's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell
developed out of Gaskell's letter request for an autograph note. ABJ
was supportive during the scandal over Gaskell's Ruth, and advised her on the composition of North and South.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press.
203
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber.
339, 368
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.
47
Elizabeth Gaskell
pronounced herself in a letter to ABJ
delighted with its graceful suggestive wisdom.
Jameson, Anna Brownell. Anna Jameson: Letters and Friendships (1812-1860). Editor Erskine, Beatrice Caroline, T. Fisher Unwin.
295
Textual Production
Henry James
Although HJ
is best remembered as a novelist, he was also a prolific and insightful critic of literature and the arts. Over the course of his career he reviewed many novels by British women writers...
