ELIZABETH
GASKELL
(B. 1810 - D.
1865)
Elizabeth Gaskell was
one of the most famous female authors of Victorian England. Her writing illuminated
the plight of the working class and other sometimes difficult and unpleasant
social issues. Born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson in London, Gaskell was the
daughter of a Unitarian minister. She moved to the village Knutsford to live
with an aunt when her mother died. She married William Gaskell in 1832 and they
settled in the city of Manchester. She worked with her husband in his ministry,
but the condition of the poor in Manchester began to stir her thoughts and
sympathy.
Gaskell's literary career
did not begin until the middle of her life, when her only son died. She focused
her attention on the poor in the industrial community in her novel Mary Barton
(1848). The novel chronicles a working-class family struggling to survive and
the class conflicts and hatred they face. Many critics were harsh in their
reviews because of her open sympathy for the working class. Her novel was a
success despite this because of her undeniable talent. Much of her work
continued to examine social issues in England. Ruth (1853), a novel about
seduction, broke with traditional Victorian moral codes by allowing the seduced
girl to escape the traditional progression to prostitution and death.
Her work had much critical success among her contemporaries. Charles Dickens even invited her to contribute to his magazine, Household Words. Gaskell also became friends with Charlotte Bronte. After Bronte's death, Gaskell wrote one of the most famous biographies about her life. However, shortly after its publication, controversy arose. Several of the people mentioned in the book felt that they were unfairly represented and even threatened legal action. The experience left her with such a strong distaste for biographies that she implored her daughters to do all that they could to prevent any biographies of her from being written.
Gaskell's popularity during her lifetime has since waned a bit, but she still remains an important figure in Victorian British Literature. Her last work Wives and Daughters, is considered to be one of her best. Her humorous tone allows her to satire the society around her and shows Gaskell's artistic growth. Unfortunately, her health deteriorated while she was working on the novel and she died before it was completed. While historians still debate how major her work was and are trying to discover how she places next to her contemporaries, it cannot be denied that her work as a social historian and her work in a traditionally male occupation make her a figure worth studying even today.
Elizabeth Gaskell – Windows Internet Explorer
Written by
Jean Lloyd December 2005
Last
Revision: 7 July 2006
Copyright ©
MMV Prof. Pavlac's Women's History Site
22 Octubre de 2008, 18:05
URL: http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/elizgaskell.html
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Natalia Quintana Morán
naquinmo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press
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