Elizabeth Gaskell

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Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson, (29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English

England

Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
. She is perhaps best known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Bront? was a United Kingdom novelist, the eldest of the three famous Bront? sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature....
. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of society, including the very poor, and as such are of interest to social historians

Social history

Social history is an area of history study, considered by some to be a social science, that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends....
as well as lovers of literature.

ell was born Elizabeth Stevenson on 29 September 1810, at 93 Cheyne Walk

Cheyne Walk

Cheyne Walk is a historic street in Chelsea, London. Most of the houses were built in the early eighteenth century. Before the construction in the nineteenth century of the busy Thames Embankment, which now runs in front of it, the houses fronted the River Thames....
, Chelsea

Chelsea, London

Chelsea is an area of south-west London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road power station and Chelsea Harbour....
, which was then on the outskirts of London

London

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Encyclopedia

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson, (29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English

England

Victorian era

Charlotte Brontë

Social history

Early life

Gaskell was born Elizabeth Stevenson on 29 September 1810, at 93 Cheyne Walk

Cheyne Walk

Chelsea, London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
. Gaskell was the eighth and last of her parents' children, the only one except the first-born, John (born 1806), to survive infancy. Her father, William Stevenson, was a Scottish

Scottish people

The Scots people are a nation and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.Historically, as an ethnic group, they emerged from an amalgamation of Celts, Picts, Gaels and Brythons....
Unitarian

Unitarianism

Failsworth

Failsworth is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on undulating ground, on the course of the Rochdale Canal and north bank of the River Medlock....
, near Manchester, but resigned his orders on conscientious grounds, moving his family to London in 1806 with intention of going to India after he had been named private secretary to the Earl of Lauderdale

Earl of Lauderdale

The title Earl of Lauderdale was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1624 for John 2nd Lord Maitland of Thirlestane, Berwickshire. The second Earl was created Duke of Lauderdale but died without male issue when the dukedom became extinct....
, who was to become Governor-General of India

Governor-General of India

The Governor-General of India was the head of the British Raj in India, and later, after Indian Independence Act 1947, the representative of the List of Indian monarchs#Kings of India and Pakistan....
. This position did not materialise and Stevenson was instead nominated Keeper of the Treasury Records. Stevenson's wife, Elizabeth Holland, came from a prominent Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands is an area of England which broadly corresponds to the early-mediaeval Mercia. The area lies between Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales, and its largest city is Birmingham....
family that was well connected with other Unitarian and prominent families like the Wedgwood

Wedgwood

Wedgwood, strictly Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a British pottery firm, originally founded in 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood, which in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal, creating Waterford Wedgwood, the Ireland-based luxury brands group....
s, the Turners

J. M. W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner Royal Academy was an English Romanticism Landscape art, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style is said to have laid the foundation for Impressionism....
and the Darwins, and when she died three months after giving birth to Gaskell she left a bewildered husband who saw no other alternative for young Elizabeth but to be sent away to live with her mother's sister Hannah Lumb, in Knutsford

Knutsford

Knutsford is a town and civil parish within the Macclesfield , Cheshire, England, located south-west of Manchester and north-west of Macclesfield....
, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a Counties of England in North West England. The county town, and the location of the county council, is the City status in the United Kingdom of Chester, although Cheshire's largest town in terms of area and population is Warrington....
.

While growing up Gaskell's future was very uncertain as she had no personal wealth, and no firm home, even though she was a permanent guest at her aunt and grandparents' house. Her father had married again to Catherine Thomson in 1814 and the couple had a male heir, William (born 1815) and a daughter, Catherine (born 1816). Although Gaskell would sometimes spend several years without seeing her father and his new family, her older brother John would often visit her in Knutsford. John had been early destined for the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
, like his grandfathers and uncles, but he had no entry and had to go into the Merchant Navy with the East India Company's fleet. John went missing in 1827 during an expedition to India

India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
.

Much of Elizabeth's childhood was spent in Cheshire

Cheshire

Knutsford

Knutsford is a town and civil parish within the Macclesfield , Cheshire, England, located south-west of Manchester and north-west of Macclesfield....
, a town she would later immortalise as Cranford
Cranford (novel)

Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens....
. They lived in a large red brick house, Heathwaite, on Heathside (now Gaskell Avenue), which faces the large open area of Knutsford Heath.

She also spent some time in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a City status in the United Kingdom and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Situated on the north bank of the River Tyne, the city developed from a Roman Empire settlement called Pons Aelius, though it owes its name to the Newcastle Castle built in 1080, by Robert Curthose, the eldest son of...
(with Rev. William Turner's family) and in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
. Her stepmother was a sister of the Scottish

Scottish people

The Scots people are a nation and an ethnic group indigenous to Scotland.Historically, as an ethnic group, they emerged from an amalgamation of Celts, Picts, Gaels and Brythons....
miniature artist

Portrait miniature

A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache or watercolor painting.Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th century and 18th century....
, William John Thomson, who painted the famous 1832 portrait of Gaskell in Manchester. Also during this period, Gaskell met and married William Gaskell

William Gaskell

The Reverend William Gaskell was an English Unitarianism minister, charity worker and pioneer in the education of the working class. The husband of novelist and biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, he was himself a writer and poet....
, the minister at Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, who had a literary career of his own. They spent their honeymoon in North Wales

North Wales

File:North Wales .pngNorth Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales, bordered to the south by Mid Wales and to the east by England....
, staying with Elizabeth's uncle, Samuel Holland, who lived near Porthmadog

Porthmadog

Porthmadog, known locally as Port, is a small coastal town in the Eifionydd area. It is located in the Dwyfor local government district, in the county of Gwynedd, North Wales....
.

Married life and Plymouth Grove

Elizabeth Gaskell Project Gutenberg Etext 19222

The Gaskells settled in Manchester, where the industrial surroundings would offer inspiration for her novels (in the industrial genre

Industrial novel

The industrial novel is a genre of early Victorian literature. A subclass of the social novel, it portrays the difficult conditions of life of the urban working class during the Industrial Revolution....
). They had several children: a stillborn daughter in 1833, followed by Marianne (1834), Margaret Emily (1837), known as Meta, Florence Elizabeth (1842), William (1844-1845), and Julia Bradford (1846). Her daughter Florence married a barrister, Charles Crompton, in 1862.

They rented a villa in Plymouth Grove

84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester

84 Plymouth Grove is a listed building Neoclassical architecture villa in Manchester, England, which was home to the Elizabeth Gaskell family between 1850 and 1913....
in 1850, after the publication of Gaskell's first novel, and Gaskell lived in the house with her family until her death 15 years later. All of Gaskell's books except one were written at Plymouth Grove, while her husband held welfare committees and tutored the poor in his study. The circles in which the Gaskells moved included literary greats, religious dissenters, and social reformers, including William

William Howitt

William Howitt , was an England author.He was born at Heanor, Derbyshire. His parents were Religious Society of Friends, and he was educated at the Ackworth School at Ackworth, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire....
and Mary Howitt

Mary Howitt

Mary Howitt was an England English poetry, and author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly . She was born Mary Botham at Coleford, Gloucestershire, in Gloucestershire, the temporary residence of her parents, while her father, Samuel Botham, a prosperous quaker of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, was looking after some mining property...
. Visitors to Plymouth Grove included Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
, John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was a British art critic and social thought, also remembered as an author, poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian era and Edwardian period eras....
, Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist, whose novel Uncle Tom's Cabin depicted life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the U.S....
and American writer Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton

Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading United States author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States....
, while conductor Charles Hallé

Charles Hallé

Sir Charles Hall? was a German pianist and Conducting, and founder of The Hall? orchestra in 1858.Hall? was born in Hagen, Province of Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle....
lived close by and taught the piano to one of Gaskell's four daughters. Close friend Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Bront? was a United Kingdom novelist, the eldest of the three famous Bront? sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature....
is known to have stayed there three times, and on one occasion hid behind the drawing room curtains as she was too shy to meet Gaskell's visitors.

Gaskell died in Holybourne

Holybourne

Holybourne is a small village in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 1.3 miles northeast of Alton, Hampshire, just off the A31 road....
, Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire , sometimes historically Southamptonshire, Hamptonshire, , or the County of Southampton, is a Counties of England on the south coast of England....
in 1865, aged 55. The house on Plymouth Grove remained in the Gaskell family until 1913.

Literary style and themes

Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton
Mary Barton

Mary Barton is the first novel by England author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848 in literature. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian era lower class....
, was published anonymously in 1848. The best known of her remaining novels are Cranford
Cranford (novel)

Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens....
(1853), North and South
North and South (1854 novel)

North and South is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in book form in 1855 originally appeared as a twenty-two-part weekly serial from September 1854 through January 1855 in the magazine Household Words, edited by Charles Dickens....
(1854), and Wives and Daughters
Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in the Cornhill Magazine as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866....
(1865). She became popular for her writing, especially her ghost story

Ghost story

A ghost story may be a true story of an experience, or any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or the belief of some character in them....
writing, aided by her friend Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
, who published her work in his magazine Household Words
Household Words

Household Words was an English weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens which took its name from the line from Shakespeare "Familiar in his mouth as household words" ? Henry V ....
. Her ghost stories are quite distinct in style from her industrial fiction

Industrial novel

Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction is a genre of literature that combines elements of both Horror fiction and Romance . As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto....
genre.

Even though her writing conforms to Victorian conventions (including signing her name "Mrs. Gaskell"), Gaskell usually frames her stories as critiques of contemporary attitudes, particularly those toward women, with complex narratives and dynamic female characters.

In addition to her fiction, Gaskell also wrote the first biography of Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Bront? was a United Kingdom novelist, the eldest of the three famous Bront? sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature....
, which played a significant role in developing her fellow writer's reputation.

Themes

Unitarianism

Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity . It is the philosophy upon which the modern Unitarian movement was based, and, according to its proponents, is the Early Christianity of Christianity....
urges comprehension and tolerance upon its members and upon all religions and, even though Gaskell tried to keep her own beliefs hidden, these were values Gaskell felt very strongly about and tried to include in her works, like in North and South where "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm".

Dialect usage

Gaskell's style is notable for putting local dialect

Dialect

A dialect is a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class....
words into the voice of middle-class characters and of the narrator, for example in North and South, Margaret Hale suggests redding up (tidying) the Bouchers' house and even offers jokingly to teach her mother words such as knobstick (strike-breaker). 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

Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor was an England writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity....
:

:'...you will remember the country people's use of the word "unked". I can't find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort, and I sometimes "potter" and "mither" people by using it.'

She used the dialect word "nesh

Nesh

Nesh is an English language dialect adjective meaning unusually susceptible to cold weather and there is no synonym for this use. Usage has been recorded in Cheshire, Staffordshire, the East Midlands, Lancashire, South Yorkshire and Shropshire....
" (soft), which goes back to Old English, in Mary Barton:

"Sit you down here: the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold."

and later in 'The Manchester Marriage' [1858]:

"Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl."

"At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day."

Publications

Novels

Mary Barton
Mary Barton

Mary Barton is the first novel by England author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848 in literature. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian era lower class....
(1848)
Cranford
Cranford (novel)

Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens....
(1851–3)
Ruth
Ruth (novel)

Ruth is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in three volumes in 1853....
(1853)
North and South
North and South (1854 novel)

North and South is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in book form in 1855 originally appeared as a twenty-two-part weekly serial from September 1854 through January 1855 in the magazine Household Words, edited by Charles Dickens....
(1854–5)
Sylvia's Lovers
Sylvia's Lovers

Sylvia's Lovers is a novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell, which she called "the saddest story I ever wrote"....
(1863)
Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story
Wives and Daughters

Wives and Daughters is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in the Cornhill Magazine as a serial from August 1864 to January 1866....
(1865)

Novellas and collections

The Moorland Cottage (1850)
Mr. Harrison’s Confessions (1851)
The Old Nurse's Story (1852)
Lizzie Leigh (1855)
My Lady Ludlow
My Lady Ludlow

My Lady Ludlow is a long novella by Elizabeth Gaskell. It appeared in the magazine Household Words in 1858, and was republished in Round the Sofa in 1859, with framing passages added at the start and end....
(1859)
Round the Sofa (1859)
Lois the Witch (1861)
A Dark Night's Work (1863)
Cousin Phillis
Cousin Phillis

"Cousin Phillis" is a novella by Elizabeth Gaskell originally published in four parts, though a fifth and sixth part were planned. The story is about Paul Manning, a youth of nineteen who moves to the country and befriends his mother's family and his cousin Phillis Holman, who is confused by her own placement at the edge of adolescence....
(1864)

Short stories (partial)

Libbie Marsh's Three Eras (1847)
Christmas Storms and Sunshine (1848)
The Squire's Story (1853)
Half a Life-time Ago (1855)
An Accursed Race (1855)
The Poor Clare (1856)
"The Manchester Marriage" (1858), a chapter of A House to Let
A House to Let

"A House to Let" is a short story by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. It was originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' Household Words magazine....
, co-written with Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens, Royal Society of Arts , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English people novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous Reform movement....
, Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins was an English people novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work....
, and Adelaide Anne Procter
Adelaide Anne Procter

Adelaide Anne Procter , an England poet, was the eldest daughter of the poet Bryan Procter.In 1851, Procter became a Roman Catholic. She took much interest in social questions affecting women....
The Half-brothers (1859)
The Grey Woman (1861)

Non-fiction

The Life of Charlotte Brontë
The Life of Charlotte Bronte

The Life of Charlotte Bront? is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Bront? by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Although quite frank in many places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Constantin Heger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to contemporary morals and a possible source of di...
(1857)

External links

*
from LibriVox
LibriVox

LibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers. In January 2009, it had a catalog of 2,014 unabridged books and shorter works available to download....