❝Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for this wisdom.❞
-- Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson, often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer specially on her dear friend, Charlotte Brontë, and short story writer. Gaskell was a daughter of a Unitarian minister. She was born on September 29, 1810, in Chelsea, London; when she was thirteen months old her mother, Mrs Stevenson, passed away on October 29, 1811. Gaskell was sent and spent her childhood with her aunt, her mother's sister, Aunt Hannah Lumb whom she later on described her aunt as 'more than mother'. She lived in Cheshire village of Knutsford in a kindly atmosphere of rural gentility that was already old-fashioned at the time. In 1832, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister, and they settled in the overcrowded, problem-ridden industrial city of Manchester, which remained her home for the rest of her life.
In her domestic life, the Gaskells had six children - four daughters who lived to adulthood. Gaskell focused a lot of her time on the social and charitable responsibilities of a minister's wife, but not all of her time. She did not begin her literary career until her middle life, when the death of her only son, William, from scarlet fever intensified her sense of community with the poor and her desire to "give utterance" to their "agony." When her son passed, Gaskell had already published a few short stories, her husband suggested that she wrote a novel as a distraction from her grief.
Her first novel, Mary Barton (1848), reflects the temper of Manchester in the late 1830s. It is the story of the working-class family in which the father, John Barton, lapses into bitter class hatred during a cyclic depression and carries out a murder at the behest of his trade union. The story was published during the revolutionary year of 1848 that brought the novel immediate success. The story won praise from Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle. Dickens invited Gaskell to contribute to his magazine, Household Words, where her next major work, Cranford (1853) appeared.
The conflict between Mrs. Gaskell's sympathetic understanding and the strictures of Victorian morality resulted in a mixed reception for her next social novel, Ruth (1853). It offered an alternative to the seduced girl's traditional progress to prostitution and an early grave. The following year, she published her most well-known novel, workers in Milton which was inspired by Manchester, North and South (1854-1855).
Among the many friends attracted by Mrs. Gaskell was Charlotte Brontë, who died in 1855 and whose biography Charlotte's father, Patrick Brontë, urged her to write. The Lift of Charlotte Brontë written with warmhearted admiration, disposed of a mass of firsthand material with unforced narrative skill. It is at once a work of art and a well-documented interpretation of its subject.
Her later novels consisted of My Lady Ludlow (1858), A Dark Night's Work (1863), and Sylvia's Lovers (1863), dealing with the impact of the Napoleonic Wars upon simple people, is notable. Her last and longest work, Wives and Daughters (1864 - 1866), concerning the interlocking fortunes of two or three country families, is considered by many her finest. It was left unfinished at her death. Elizabeth Gaskell died suddenly on November 12, 1865.
Discussion Questions:
Elizabeth Gaskell started to write stories and biography in her middle life, when was it you started to write stories? Or when did you fall in love with reading stories?
An unfinished story. What do you think is applicable (to the writer's wishes said before they passed away): to publish what was written and leave it unfinished or publish what they written and have a close relative finish the writing?
What's your favorite book you've read by Elizabeth Gaskell?
Always open to additional questions and comments on about Elizabeth Gaskell and her works.
If there is another author you would like to see a discussion on, please post your suggestion in the comments below for a chance to be featured in a future chapter!
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