Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) novelist and short-story writer
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell [nee Stevenson] is described by her biographer, Jenny Uglow, as the writer of ‘some of the most enduring novels of the Victorian age’.
Soon after her birth in 1810, her mother died and the young Elizabeth was sent into the care of her aunt, Mrs Lumb, at Knutsford in Cheshire. Gaskell was much influenced by her early life at Knutsford which was to be the model for her novel, Cranford (she also based Hollingford in Wives and Daughters on it). At fifteen she was sent to school at Stratford-upon-Avon, where she remained for two years. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell, Minister of Cross Street Unitarian Chapel in Manchester. The marriage proved a happy one; but in 1844 the Gaskell’s son Willie died during a visit to Ffestiniog, and Gaskell turned to writing to overcome her grief, beginning work on her first novel, Mary Barton.
Grounded in the grim realities of working-class life in Manchester, it was published anonymously in 1848 and enjoyed immediate success, and its sympathetic portrayal of the extreme poverty and hardship that she had observed in her role as a Minister’s wife prompted a lot of discussion. However Gaskell had also aroused controversy by her unfavourable portrayal in the novel of the employing class in Manchester, some of whom attacked her in the press.
Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens had been especially impressed by Gaskell’s debut, and he invited her to contribute to his new journal, Household Words in 1850. The first number, published on 30 March 1850, included her short story Lizzie Leigh. She contributed frequently to this and other journals in coming years, writing stories in a number of different styles. In 1853, Mrs Gaskell published her second novel, Ruth, and this was followed by her humorous portrait of provincial life, Cranford, in the same year (this work had originally appeared in Household Words between 1851 and 1853). One of her most important works, North and South, was published in Household Words between September 1854 and January 1855, and was reproduced in a single edition in the latter year. This was a less emotive and more deeply characterised novel of contemporary social conditions, for which Gaskell had undertaken a great deal of research in the Lancashire area.
Further Works
After the publication of this novel, Mrs Gaskell moved into the new area of biography. She had met Charlotte Brontë in 1850, and they became firm friends, despite considerable differences of personality. After Brontë’s death in 1855, Mrs Gaskell agreed to write her life, which she worked on intensively until it was published in 1857. Certain comments made in the book, based on conversations between Gaskell and Brontë, aroused great controversy, and Gaskell was forced to retract the statements in the columns of The Times, and to withdraw all the unsold copies of the first edition on the grounds that they were libellous. Despite these setbacks, her portrait of Charlotte Brontë was considered a success.
In 1863 she published Sylvia’s Lovers, followed by Cousin Phyllis. Her last work, Wives and Daughters, was published in the Cornhill Magazine between August 1864 and January 1866. It was reprinted as an unfinished work in the following February. In November 1865 Mrs Gaskell died suddenly of a heart attack at her country home at Holybourne, Hampshire. She was buried at the Unitarian chapel in Knutsford, where her husband was also laid to rest in 1884. A collected edition of Mrs Gaskell’s works was published in seven volumes in 1873.
Gaskell and Manchester
Gaskell moved to Manchester in 1832 at age 22 on her marriage. She would spend the rest of her life as a resident of the city, the setting of so many of her novels. Her portrayal of the deprivations suffered in the city would bring Manchester into the social consciousness of the 19th century as never before. The Gaskell family’s residence is now a museum open to the public, Gaskell House.
Gaskell Papers
The collection includes original manuscripts of Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, the novel Wives and Daughters, the short stories ‘The Crooked Branch’ and ‘The Grey Woman’, an autograph manuscript of Dickens’s short story ‘A Child’s Dream of a Star’, and manuscripts relating to the Brontë family. The collection’s correspondence includes 29 letters from Charles Dickens, 22 autograph letters from Charlotte Brontë, and 18 letters from Patrick Brontë, letters from William Makepeace Thackeray and Walter Savage Landor, and approximately 113 letters sent to Gaskell or her husband from contemporary writers and other notable individuals. Additionally, there is Gaskell’s own 200 piece autograph collection which features a range of significant contemporary and historical figures, a portrait miniature of Gaskell painted by William John Thomson in 1832, and Gaskell’s ink-stand, paper-knife and other personal possessions. The collection catalogue can be accessed here.
A collection of digitised Gaskell material can be accessed on our new image viewer, Manchester Digital Collections. It includes full access to:
- English MS 729 Letters from Charles Dickens to Elizabeth Gaskell;
- English MS 876 Manuscript of ‘The Grey Woman’ by Elizabeth Gaskell;
- English MS 877 Manuscript of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (2 volumes);
- University MS Manuscript of The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell (2 volumes);
- University MS Manuscript of The Crooked Branch by Elizabeth Gaskell
Discussion points
- What impact did Gaskell’s gender have upon her work, its reception and her legacy?
- What do the manuscripts and correspondence tell us about Gaskell’s creative process?
- Gaskell had to re-write and retract her biography of Charlotte Bronte, what does this tell us about censorship and the importance of critical thinking when analysing this text?
Additional Resources
Elizabeth Gaskell Papers Catalogues
Getting to know Gaskell; readings of excerpts of Gaskell’s works
Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens Collection on Manchester Digital Collections
Elizabeth Gaskell by Jenny Uglow, Faber & Faber (1999)
