Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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.
Lady Byron
was another of the Clives' acquaintances. Following a visit in 1843, CC
wrote: That is the woman that has been tossed about by such vehement passions, by contact with such a fiery nature...
Friends, Associates
Mary Cowden Clarke
In addition to meeting Dickens
as a result of her theatrical activities, MCC
and her husband met William Hazlitt
through a shared duty of theatre reviewing, and she became friends with Mary Howitt
, and...
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...
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.
Surtees, Virginia. Jane Welsh Carlyle. Michael Russell.
205
politics
Josephine Butler
Their relocation was, however, only partly due to consideration for her health. One scholar notes that during their residence at Oxford, in a community dominated by distinguished intellectuals [JB
] was merely the wife...
Literary responses
Frances Hodgson Burnett
The American reviews were highly flattering. The reviewer for the Boston Transcript could think of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the English language, not even George Eliot
at her best.
Gerzina, Gretchen. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chatto and Windus.
67
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.
3: 25
She strongly admired the...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
She and Gaskell
quickly established an epistolary friendship.
Shelston, Alan, and Elizabeth Gaskell. “Introduction”. The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Penguin, pp. 9-37.
11
death
Charlotte Brontë
Her body was placed in the family vault in Haworth Church on April 4. When Gaskell
heard of the circumstances of the death, she regretted she had not known; she would have hoped to save...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Numerous friends and acquaintances of CB
wrote tributes or obituaries which initiated the legend of the Brontës and Charlotte in particular: Harriet Martineau
in the Daily News on April 6; Matthew Arnold
in a short...
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...
Textual Features
Charlotte Brontë
The novel focuses on the Luddite riots in Yorkshire in the Napoleonic era. Shirley Keeldar, an heiress with a man's name who revels in her unconventionality (and who was, according to conversation Elizabeth Gaskell
had...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emily Brontë
His eventual position as a clergyman and published author in early nineteenth-century England was, given his background, a considerable accomplishment. Notwithstanding Elizabeth Gaskell
's portrait of him in her biography of his daughter as an...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anne Brontë
Patrick Brontë
was an Irish protestant from a large, respectable farming family of limited means. He took to books from an early age, opened a school for the gentry at the age of sixteen, became...
