Elizabeth Gaskell | |
|---|---|
 1832miniature | |
| Born | Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson (1810-09-29)29 September 1810 Chelsea, London, England |
| Died | 12 November 1865(1865-11-12) (aged 55) Holybourne, Hampshire, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Period | 1848–1865 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
| Signature | |
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Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (néeStevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to asMrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies ofVictorian society, including the lives of the very poor. Her first novel,Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Her only biographyThe Life of Charlotte Brontë, published in 1857, was controversial and significant in establishing the Brontë family's lasting fame. Among Gaskell's best known novels areCranford (1851–1853),North and South (1854–1855), andWives and Daughters (1864–1866), all of which have been adapted for television by the BBC.
She was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on 29 September 1810 in Lindsey Row,Chelsea, London, now 93Cheyne Walk.[1] The doctor who delivered her wasAnthony Todd Thomson, whose sister Catherine later became Gaskell's stepmother.[2] She was the youngest of eight children; only she and her brother John survived infancy. Her father,William Stevenson, aUnitarian fromBerwick-upon-Tweed, was minister atFailsworth, Lancashire, but resigned his orders on conscientious grounds. He moved to London in 1806 on the understanding that he would be appointedprivate secretary toJames Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, who was to becomeGovernor General of India. That position did not materialise, however, and Stevenson was nominated Keeper of the Treasury Records.[3]
His wife, Elizabeth Holland, came from a family established in Lancashire and Cheshire that was connected with other prominent Unitarian families, including theWedgwoods, theMartineaus, theTurners and theDarwins. When she died 13 months after giving birth to Gaskell,[4] her husband sent the baby to live with Elizabeth's sister, Hannah Lumb, inKnutsford, Cheshire.[5]
Her father remarried to Catherine Thomson, in 1814. They had a son, William, in 1815, and a daughter, Catherine, in 1816. Although Elizabeth spent several years without seeing her father, to whom she was devoted, her older brother John often visited her in Knutsford. John was destined for theRoyal Navy from an early age, like his grandfathers and uncles, but he did not obtain preferment into the Service and had to join theMerchant Navy with theEast India Company's fleet.[6] John went missing in 1827 during an expedition to India.[7]
Much of Gaskell's childhood was spent in Cheshire, where she lived with her aunt Hannah Lumb in Knutsford, the town she immortalized asCranford. They lived in a large red-brick house called The Heath (now Heathwaite).[8][9] She grew to be a beautiful young woman, well-groomed, tidily dressed, kind, gentle, and considerate of others. Her temperament was calm and collected, joyous and innocent, she revelled in the simplicity of rural life.[10]
From 1821 to 1826 she attended a school inWarwickshire run by theMisses Byerley, first atBarford and from 1824 at Avonbank outsideStratford-on-Avon,[4] where she received the traditional education in arts, the classics, decorum and propriety given to young ladies from relatively wealthy families at the time. Her aunts gave her the classics to read, and she was encouraged by her father in her studies and writing. Her brother John sent her modern books, and descriptions of his life at sea and his experiences abroad.[11]
After leaving school at the age of 16, she travelled to London to spend time with her Holland cousins.[11] She also spent some time inNewcastle upon Tyne (with theRev William Turner's family) and from there made the journey toEdinburgh. Her stepmother's brother was theminiature artistWilliam John Thomson, who in 1832 painted her portrait (see top right). A bust was sculpted by David Dunbar at the same time.[11]
On 30 August 1832 Mrs. Gaskell married Unitarian ministerWilliam Gaskell, in Knutsford. They spent their honeymoon inNorth Wales, staying with her uncle, Samuel Holland, at Plas-yn-Penrhyn nearPorthmadog.[12] The Gaskells then settled inManchester, where William was the minister atCross Street Unitarian Chapel and longest-serving chair of thePortico Library. Manchester's industrial surroundings and books borrowed from the library influenced Elizabeth's writing in theindustrial genre. Their first daughter was stillborn in 1833. Their other children were Marianne (1834), Margaret Emily, known as Meta (1837), Florence Elizabeth (1842), and Julia Bradford (1846). Marianne and Meta boarded at the private school conducted byRachel Martineau, sister ofHarriet, a close friend of Elizabeth.[13] Florence marriedCharles Crompton, a barrister and Liberal politician, in 1863.[4]
In March 1835 Mrs. Gaskell began a diary documenting the development of her daughter Marianne: she explored parenthood, the values she placed on her role as a mother; her faith, and, later, relations between Marianne and her sister, Meta. In 1836 she co-authored with her husband a cycle of poems,Sketches among the Poor, which was published inBlackwood's Magazine in January 1837. In 1840William Howitt publishedVisits to Remarkable Places containing a contribution entitledClopton Hall by "A Lady", the first work written and published solely by her. In April 1840 Howitt publishedThe Rural Life of England, which included a second work titledNotes on Cheshire Customs.[4]
In July 1841, the Gaskells travelled to Belgium and Germany.German literature came to have a strong influence on her short stories, the first of which she published in 1847 asLibbie Marsh's Three Eras, inHowitt's Journal, under the pseudonym "Cotton Mather Mills". But other influences includingAdam Smith'sSocial Politics enabled a much wider understanding of the cultural milieu in which her works were set. Her second story printed under the pseudonym wasThe Sexton's Hero. And she made her last use of it in 1848, with the publication of her storyChristmas Storms and Sunshine.[citation needed]
For some 20 years beginning in 1843, the Gaskells took holidays atSilverdale onMorecambe Bay, and in particular stayed atLindeth Tower.[14][15] Daughters Meta and Julia later built a house, "The Shieling", in Silverdale.[16]
A son, William, (1844–45), died in infancy, and this tragedy was the catalyst for Gaskell's first novel,Mary Barton. It was ready for publication in October 1848,[4] shortly before they made the move south. It was an enormous success, selling thousands of copies. Ritchie called it a "great and remarkable sensation." It was praised byThomas Carlyle andMaria Edgeworth. She brought the teemingslums of manufacturing in Manchester alive to readers as yet unacquainted with crowded narrow alleyways. Her obvious depth of feeling was evident, while her turn of phrase and description was described as the greatest sinceJane Austen.[17]
In 1850, the Gaskells moved to a villa at84 Plymouth Grove.[18] She took her cow with her. For exercise, she would happily walk three miles to help another person in distress. In Manchester, Elizabeth wrote her remaining literary works, while her husband held welfare committees and tutored the poor in his study. The Gaskells' social circle included writers, journalists, religious dissenters, and social reformers such as William andMary Howitt andHarriet Martineau. Poets, patrons of literature and writers such asLord Houghton,Charles Dickens andJohn Ruskin visited Plymouth Grove, as did the American writersHarriet Beecher Stowe andCharles Eliot Norton, while the conductorCharles Hallé, who lived close by, taught piano to one of their daughters. Elizabeth's friendCharlotte Brontë stayed there three times, and on one occasion hid behind the drawing room curtains as she was too shy to meet the Gaskells' other visitors.[19][20]
In early 1850 Gaskell wrote toCharles Dickens asking for advice about assisting a girl named Pasley whom she had visited in prison. Pasley provided her with a model for the title character ofRuth in 1853.Lizzie Leigh was published in March and April 1850, in the first numbers of Dickens's journalHousehold Words, in which many of her works were to be published, includingCranford andNorth and South, her novellaMy Lady Ludlow, and short stories.[citation needed]
In June 1855,Patrick Brontë asked Gaskell to write a biography of his daughter Charlotte, and consequently she publishedThe Life of Charlotte Brontë in 1857, a significant development in Gaskell's literary career.[4] Her choice to privilege Brontë's private life over her public literary career was unconventional and proved controversial.[21] In 1859 Gaskell travelled toWhitby to gather material forSylvia's Lovers, which was published in 1863. Her novellaCousin Phyllis was serialized inThe Cornhill Magazine from November 1863 to February 1864. The serialization of her last novel,Wives and Daughters, began in August 1864 inThe Cornhill.[4] She died of a heart attack in 1865, while visiting a house she had purchased inHolybourne, Hampshire.Wives and Daughters was published in book form in early 1866, first in the United States and then, ten days later, in Britain.[4]
Her grave is near theBrook Street Chapel, Knutsford.[citation needed]
Mrs. Gaskell's reputation from her death to the 1950s was epitomised byLord David Cecil's assessment inEarly Victorian Novelists (1934) that she was "all woman" and "makes a creditable effort to overcome her natural deficiencies but all in vain" (quoted in Stoneman, 1987, from Cecil, p. 235). A scathing unsignedreview ofNorth and South inThe Leader accused Gaskell of making errors about Lancashire which a resident of Manchester would not make and said that a woman (or clergymen and women) could not "understand industrial problems", would "know too little about thecotton industry" and had no "right to add to the confusion by writing about it".[22]
Mrs. Gaskell's novels, with the exception ofCranford, gradually slipped into obscurity during the late 19th century; before 1950, she was dismissed as a minor author with good judgment and "feminine" sensibilities. Archie Stanton Whitfield said her work was "like a nosegay of violets, honeysuckle, lavender, mignonette and sweet briar" in 1929.[23] Cecil (1934) said that she lacked the "masculinity" necessary to properly deal with social problems (Chapman, 1999, pp. 39–40).
However, the critical tide began to turn in Mrs. Gaskell's favour when, in the 1950s and 1960s, socialist critics likeKathleen Tillotson,Arnold Kettle andRaymond Williams re-evaluated the description of social and industrial problems in her novels (see Moore, 1999[24] for an elaboration), and—realising that her vision went against the prevailing views of the time—saw it as preparing the way for vocalfeminist movements.[25]In the early 21st century, with Mrs. Gaskell's work "enlisted in contemporary negotiations of nationhood as well as gender and class identities",[26]North and South – one of the first industrial novels describing the conflict between employers and workers – was recognized as depicting complex social conflicts and offering more satisfactory solutions through Margaret Hale: spokesperson for the author and Gaskell's most mature creation.[27]
In her introduction toThe Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell (2007), a collection of essays representing the current Gaskell scholarship, Jill L. Matus stresses the author's growing stature in Victorian literary studies and how her innovative, versatile storytelling addressed the rapid changes during her lifetime.[citation needed]
Gaskell's first novel,Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848. The best-known of her remaining novels areCranford (1851–1853),North and South (1854–1855), andWives and Daughters (1864–1866). She became popular for her writing, especially herghost stories, aided byCharles Dickens, who published her work in his magazineHousehold Words. Her ghost stories are in the "Gothic" vein, making them quite distinct from her "industrial" fiction.[citation needed]
Even though her writing conforms to Victorian conventions, including the use of the name "Mrs. Gaskell", she usually framed her stories as critiques of contemporary attitudes. Her early works were highly influenced by the social analysis ofThomas Carlyle and focused on factory work in the Midlands.[28] She usually emphasized the role of women, with complex narratives and realistic female characters.[29] Gaskell was influenced by the writings ofJane Austen, especially inNorth and South, which borrows liberally from the courtship plot ofPride and Prejudice.[30] She was an established novelist when Patrick Brontë invited her to write a biography of his daughter, though she worried, as a writer of fiction, that it would be "a difficult thing" to "be accurate and keep to the facts."[31] Her treatment of class continues to interest social historians as well as fiction readers.[32]
Unitarianism urges comprehension and tolerance toward all religions and even though Gaskell tried to keep her own beliefs hidden, she felt strongly about these values which permeated her works; inNorth and South, "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father theDissenter, Higgins theInfidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm."[33][34]
Gaskell's style is notable for putting local dialect words into the mouths of middle-class characters and the narrator. InNorth and South Margaret Hale suggestsredding up (tidying) the Bouchers' house and even offers jokingly to teach her mother words such asknobstick (strike-breaker).[35] In 1854 she defended her use of dialect to express otherwise inexpressible concepts in a letter toWalter Savage Landor:
... you will remember the country people's use of the word "unked". I can't find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort, and I sometimes "potter" and "mither" people by using it.[35][36]
She also used the dialect word "nesh" (a person who feels the cold easily or often feels cold is said to be 'nesh'), which goes back toOld English, inMary Barton:
Sit you down here: the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold.[37]
also inNorth and South:
And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft,[38]
and later in "The Manchester Marriage" (1858):
Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl.
and:
At Mrs Wilson's death Norah came back to them, as a nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day.[39]
Source:[40]
Gaskell appears in the 1973Yorkshire Television seriesThe Brontës of Haworth, written byChristopher Fry, and her words are used to narrate the story. Gaskell is played byBarbara Leigh Hunt.
The house on Plymouth Grove remained in the Gaskell family until 1913, after which it stood empty and fell into disrepair. TheUniversity of Manchester acquired it in 1969 and in 2004 it was acquired by the Manchester Historic Buildings Trust, which then raised money to restore it. Exterior renovations were completed in 2011; it is now open to the public as ahistoric house museum.[45][46] In 2010, a memorial to Gaskell was unveiled inPoets' Corner inWestminster Abbey. The panel was dedicated by her great-great-great-granddaughter Sarah Prince and a wreath was laid.[47]Manchester City Council have created an award in Gaskell's name, given to recognize women's involvement in charitable work and improvement of lives.[48] A bibliomemoirMrs. Gaskell and me: Two Women, Two Love Stories, Two centuries Apart, by Nell Stevens was published in 2018.[49][50]
The playwrightMargaret Macnamara wrote a play based on the novel which was performed in 1949.[51] An adaptation of her novelWives and Daughters aired on BBC television in 1999. In 2004, a television film miniseries aired on BBC television of her 1854 novelNorth and South. In 2007, a five part serialisation of her novelCranford starringJudi Dench aired on BBC television.
The Gaskell Memorial Hall,Silverdale'svillage hall, is so named because while funds were being raised for the building of the hall in 1928 a donor offered £50, or £100 if it was named thus: the conversation is recorded by novelistWillie Riley in his autobiography.[52]
The rebuiltCross Street Chapel in Manchester houses a collection of memorabilia of the writer in the Gaskell Room of the new building.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Meta (Margaret Emily), the second daughter, was sent at about the same age as Marianne to Miss Rachel Martineau, ...
LORD HOUGHTON once said that the conversation and society to be met within the house of the Gaskells at Manchester were the one thing which made life in that city tolerable for people of literary tastes. Miss Meta Gaskell, (daughter of Elizabeth Gaskell) who died last Sunday...
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)A Harrogate gentleman, Sir Norman Rae, ... told me ... he had opened a village hall in Nidderdale. "I gave them fifty pounds," he remarked, casually. This roused me and I said "We in this village are desperately anxious to build a hall of that kind... Will you give us fifty pounds?" We had been talking of Mrs Gaskell's connection ... "Shall we call it a Memorial Hall to that lady?" ... "If you'll do that... I'll give you a hundred."
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