ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD BIOGRAPHY ON ELIZABETH
GASKELL
The English author
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) wrote sociological novels that explored the ills
of industrial England and novels of small-town life that are penetrating
studies of character.
Elizabeth Cleghorn
Stevenson was born on Sept. 29, 1810. Her mother died shortly thereafter, and
she was sent to live with an aunt in Knutsford, a village in Cheshire. At the
age of 15 she went to school at Stratford-on-Avon, where she remained for 2 years.
She married the Reverend William Gaskell on Aug. 30, 1832.
The couple settled in
industrial Manchester. There Elizabeth observed the extreme hardship of the
workers and their struggles with the owners for a greater share in the profits
of the mills. Her observations provided much of the background for Mary Barton
(1848), her first novel. It was begun in 1845 to relieve her grief at the death
of William, her fifth child and only son, and completed during intervals in a
busy family life. It centers on a sensational murder but was written with the
serious purpose of pointing out what John Barton, Mary's father, called the
"right way" to remedy the ills of the workers. This is essentially a
change of heart in worker and owner alike. The novel was both praised and
damned, but it was an immediate success.
Because of Mary
BartonGaskell was asked to contribute stories to Charles Dickens's magazine
Household Words. "Lizzie Leigh," which dealt with illicit love and
illegitimacy, appeared in the first issue. Its themes were developed in Ruth
(1853), in which Gaskell again called for a change of heart in the public.
Then Gaskell turned from
the sociological novel to the novel of village life. Sketches which had
appeared in Household Words were published as Cranford (1853). Drawn from the
people and scenes known during her childhood in Knutsford, Cranford was far
less sensational than her earlier books but no less interesting. The humorously
depicted incidents and sharply observed characters capture the attention today
as in the 19th century.
In North and South
(1855) Gaskell returned to the sociological novel. Then, because of her
friendship with Charlotte Brontë, Gaskell wrote The Life of Charlotte Brontë
(1857). She was quite unlike the intensely introspective Charlotte but
extremely sympathetic to her. Though the book did not tell the whole truth
about Brontë's life, it was a remarkably revealing biography.
After the biography came
Sylvia's Lovers (1863), a historical novel, and Wives and Daughters (1866), a novel
of life in a quiet country town. Unfinished at her death, Wives and Daughters
is Gaskell's most mature treatment of character. She died on Nov. 12, 1865.
Elizabeth
Gaskell – Biography / Encyclopedia of World Biography
18
Septiembre de 2009, 13:42
Elizabeth
Gaskell from Encyclopedia of World Biography. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part
of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.
URL: http://www.bookrags.com/biography/elizabeth-gaskell/
Academic year 2009/2010
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Natalia Quintana Morán
naquinmo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press
Ţ MORE BIOGRAPHIES: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]