Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell , often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was a British
novelist and short story writer. She is today ranked among the most highly regarded British novelists of the
Victorian era.
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Gaskell , often referred to simply as
Mrs. Gaskell, was a British
novelist and short story writer. She is today ranked among the most highly regarded British novelists of the
Victorian era.
Life
She was born
Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson at 93 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in
London on September 29th 1810. Her mother, Eliza Holland, was from a prominant Midlands family that was well connected with other Unitarian and prominent families like the Wedgwoods and the Darwins, but she died when Elizabeth was a child. Her father, William Stevenson, was a
Unitarian minister, and also a writer and remarried after Eliza's death.
Much of her childhood was spent in
Cheshire, where she lived with an aunt, Mrs Lumb, in
Knutsford, a town she would later immortalise as
Cranford.
She also spent some time in
Newcastle upon Tyne and
Edinburgh. Her stepmother was a sister of the
Scottish miniature artist, William John Thomson, who painted a famous portrait of Elizabeth in 1832.
In the same year, she married William Gaskell, the minister at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel in Manchester who had a literary career of his own. They settled in
Manchester where the industrial surroundings would offer inspiration for her novels . The circles in which the Gaskells moved included religious dissenters and social reformers, including William and
Mary Howitt.
Gaskell died in
Hampshire,
England,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on 22nd November 1865, aged 55.
Works
Gaskell's first novel,
Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848. The best-known of her remaining novels are
Cranford ,
North and South , and
Wives and Daughters .
She became popular for her writing, especially her ghost story writing, aided by her friend
Charles Dickens, who published her work in
Household Words was a weekly magazine [i] edited by Charles Dickens [i] which took its name from the ...
. Her ghost stories are quite distinct in style from her industrial fiction and belong to the
Gothic fiction genre.
Even though her writing conforms to Victorian conventions , Gaskell usually frames her stories as critiques of
Victorian era attitudes, particularly those toward women, with complex narratives and dynamic women characters.
In addition to her fiction, Gaskell also wrote the first biography of
Charlotte Brontė, which played a significant role in developing her fellow writer's reputation.
Dialect usage
Gaskell's style is notable for putting local dialect words into the voice of middle-class characters and of the narrator; for example in
North and South, Margaret Hale suggests
redding up the Bouchers' house and even offers jokingly to teach her mother words such as
knobstick . Her husband collected Lancashire dialect, and Gaskell defended her use of dialect as expressing otherwise inexpressible concepts in an 1854 letter to Walter Savage Landor:
Publications
Novels
- Mary Barton
- Cranford
- Ruth
- North and South
- Sylvia's Lovers
- Cousin Phillis
-
Collections
- The Moorland Cottage
- The Old Nurse's Story
- Lizzie Leigh
- My Lady Ludlow
- Round the Sofa
- Lois the Witch
- A Dark Night's Work
Short stories
- The Squire's Story
- Half a Life-time Ago
- An Accursed Race
- The Manchester Marriage
- The Half-brothers
- The Grey Woman
Non-fiction
- The Life of Charlotte Bronte
References
External links
