Elizabeth Gaskell was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victoria era. She is best known for her novels Cranford and North and South, and for writing the biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë.
Gaskell was born Elizabeth Stevenson in 1810 in Chelsea, London. Her mother, Elizabeth died when she was young and her father, William, was unable to cope. He sent her to live with her aunt, Hannah Lumb, in Knutsford, Cheshire. The town would later serve as inspiration for her novel, Cranford. Gaskell received a typical education for girls at the time, studying arts, the classics, decorum and propriety. Her brother John and her aunts supplied her with books to read, and her father encouraged her in both her studies and writing.
In 1832, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister and the couple set up home in Manchester. A year later, they had a daughter, but she was stillborn. This tragedy was followed the birth of three daughters, Marianne, Margaret Emily and Florence. Gaskell then had a son, William who died at only nine months of scarlet fever. Gaskell had already written a few short stories, and turned to writing as a distraction from her sadness. She wrote her first novel, Mary Barton (A Manchester Life). The novel was published in 1848 and like many others at the time written by women, was published anonymously. It detailed the appalling poverty that workers in the industrial North were forced to live in, and inspired discussion and empathy of those who read it. Mary Barton was a huge success, and drew praise from fellow authors including Charles Dickens.
Gaskell moved to a larger house in 1850, and her success led to her becoming friends with writers, religious dissenters and social reformers like William and Mary Hewitt, Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Florence Nightingale and Charlotte Brontë. In 1852, Dickens invited Gaskell to contribute to his periodicals ’Household Words’ and ‘All the Year Round’. Gaskell wrote many stories for Dickens, including Cranford which was published in ‘Household Words’ in 1853. That same year, her novel Ruth was published in three volumes. In it, Gaskell deals with the Victorian views of sin and illegitimacy, despite the fact that this would have drawn criticism from her Unitarian husband’s congregation. Gaskell also wrote about prostitution, and in many of her writings would challenge the traditional view of women’s role in society. Two years later she published North and South, detailing the tensions between mill-owners and workers. Gaskell carefully researched both this, and her other novels and her intention was to attempt to create a better understanding between employers and workers, and the respectable and the outcasts of soviet and in doing so presented her case for social reconciliation.
In 1855, Charlotte Brontë died and her father, Patrick Brontë asked Gaskell to write a biography of her. Although she carefully researched her work, the published biography, The ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë’ (1857) caused controversy due to the fact that it was considered to contain libellous statements, which were later withdrawn. Despite the controversy, the biography was well written and showed Brontë not just as a writer, but as a woman to be celebrated. Gaskell followed this with Sylvia’s Lovers (1863) and a novella entitled Cousin Phillis which was serialised in The Cornhill Magazine from 1863 to 1864. Gaskell was writing Wives and Daughters, which had begun to be serialised when she died of a heart attack in 1865. Gaskell had been visiting The Lawn, a house in Holybourne, Hampshire when she died. She was intending to secretly buy the house as a post-retirement surprise for her husband and family.
Gaskell’s writing provides an insight into the lives of those in the Victorian era, ranging from the very wealthy to the very poor. It is enjoyed by everyone from social historians to lovers of literature and her readership and interest in her is consistently growing. She wrote in a variety of styles, and used local dialects within her writing in an attempt to accurate portray the characters she had created. Gaskell celebrated women in her writing, and wrote her female characters in roles with complex narratives. In addition to her more ’industrial fiction’, Gaskell also wrote ghost stories. Her house on Plymouth Grove remained within the family using 1913, when it fell into disrepair. It has since been acquired by the University of Manchester and later, the Manchester Historic Buildings Trust which led to it being restored. The house is now open to the public. In 2010, a memorial to Gaskell was dedicated by her great-great-great-granddaughter Sarah Prince in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.