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
Friends, Associates John Ruskin
JR 's social and intellectual network was extensive: amongst his acquaintances were Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning , Elizabeth Gaskell , Violet Hunt , Jean Ingelow , Flora Shaw , Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle
Friends, Associates Harriet Martineau
In 1838, HM met the British diplomat David Urquhart , who was known for his championship of Turkey against Russia. Although she recorded her dislike for his social egotism and misogynistic opinions, his hatred and...
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...
Friends, Associates Caroline Clive
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 Ann Hawkshaw
Sir John Hawkshaw was known to Elizabeth Gaskell 's circle. Samuel Bamford , the working-class Manchester radical and poet, mentions AH and praises her poetry in the preface to his Poems (self-published at Manchester in...
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, 1967.
286
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Fleeming Jenkin. “Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin”. Papers, Literary, Scientific, &c., edited by Sir Sidney Colvin et al., Longmans, Green, 1877, p. 1: xi - clxx.
li
To the future writer Vernon Lee she acted as literary mentor. In July 1871 she...
Friends, Associates Mary Taylor
When Elizabeth Gaskell wrote to MT in 1855 seeking information for her Life of Charlotte Brontë, Taylor responded with two letters from which Gaskell quoted.
Taylor, Mary. Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere. Editor Stevens, Joan, Auckland University Press; Oxford University Press, 1972.
9
In her later years, MT disapproved of 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, 1975, pp. 9-37.
11
Friends, Associates George Eliot
Some of her closest friends were prominent feminists, and they were among those soonest willing to flout convention and visit her after her union to Lewes.
Despite the social and spiritual gulf between them, GE
Friends, Associates Harriet Beecher Stowe
While visiting Paris, HBS frequented the salon of Germaine de Staël , and in Rome she met Elizabeth Gaskell . In a letter to Grace Schwabe , Gaskell remarked that Stowe was short and...
Friends, Associates Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn met a number of women authors who were once applauded but later complacently forgotten . . . . as literary fossils.
Linton, Eliza Lynn, and Beatrice Harraden. My Literary Life. Hodder and Stoughton, 1899.
85
She contended that Women who wrote were then few and far...
Friends, Associates Sara Coleridge
Among women writers, in addition to Dorothy Wordsworth , Joanna Baillie , and Maria Jane Jewsbury , SC also knew Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Anna Jameson , Elizabeth Rigby , Elizabeth Gaskell , and Harriet Martineau
Friends, Associates Eliza Meteyard
She became connected through her writing to Douglas Jerrold , Mary and William Howitt , and Harriet Martineau .
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press, 1970.
The difficulties of social life for unattached women are visible in her regret and anxiety over...
Friends, Associates Julia Wedgwood
Sixteen-year-old JW visited the holidaying Gaskell family at Skelwith in Little Langdale, near Ambleside in the Lake District.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber, 1993.
231-2
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...

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