Biography EssayA recent review of Mrs. Gaskell's critical reputation divided her critics into three camps. One group, now fading, still treats her mainly as the author of Cranford (1853). A second em...
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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.Elizabet...
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A recent review of Mrs. Gaskell's critical reputation divided her critics into three camps. One group, now fading, still treats her mainly as the author of Cranford (1853). A second emphasizes her "so...
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Upon hearing of the death of her friend Charlotte Brontë on 31 March 1855, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell wrote, "I loved her dearly, more than I think she knew. I shall never cease to be thankful th...
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For some critics Elizabeth Gaskell was a conventional, middle-class Victorian wife and mother who accepted the values of her world and who also happened to write books--a feminine dove among literary ...
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In the following assessment, the anonymous critic praises The Moorland Cottage for its "wholesome moral."
There is little risk in predicting that this Christmas book will divide public f...
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In the following excerpt, Stoneman investigates the means by which Gaskell blurs traditional gender roles across class divisions and criticizes patriarchal authority in her short fiction.
The society ...
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In the following excerpt, Spencer argues that Gaskell's later works, "Curious, If True" and Cousin Phillis, illustrate the melding of her social conscience with her escapist tende...
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In the following excerpt, Uglow explores the fifteen year period (1850-1865) during which Gaskell associated herself with Charles Dickens and wrote most of her short fiction.
'I did feel as if...
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In the following excerpt, Rogers contends that Phillis's male education in Cousin Phillis is not liberating, as other critics have argued, but prescriptive and ultimately damaging.
For Elizabet...
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Below, the anonymous critic favorably reviews Cousin Phillis.
To most of us the name of Mrs. Gaskell has hitherto spelt Cranford. Comparatively few of us have any personal knowledge of this fragrant i...
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In the following excerpt, Ganz studies Gaskell's use of humor in two of her short works, "Mr. Harrison 's Confessions" and My Lady Ludlow.
"Mr. Harrison's Con...
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In the following review of Mrs. Gaskell's Tales of Mystery and Horror, Tomalin suggests that the twentieth-century impulse to classify Gaskell as a "mystery" or "horror�...
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Here, Ferris faults Gaskell's ability to portray the nonrational motivations which give rise to fantasy, mystery, and the Gothic.
This collection of six Gaskell stories [Mrs. Gaskell's T...
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In the following excerpt, Levine analyzes the narrative of Gaskell's novella Cousin Phillis, placing the work within the Victorian realistic tradition.
Since, in keeping with the compromises re...
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In the following essay, Weiss maintains that the short tales within Gaskell's larger fiction work out "the anxieties and ambiguities inherent in the role of the female artist."
In...
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In the following excerpt, Lansbury presents an overview of Gaskell's short stories.
It was not unusual for the short story in [the mid-nineteenth century] to be a prelude, a testing piece for a...
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In the following essay, Brodetsky surveys Gaskell's work as a writer of short stories and novellas.
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
Shakespeare: Richard II
During the whole per...
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In the following introduction to Gaskell's collected letters, Chappie and Pollard discuss the significance of the letters as reflections and commentaries on her experience and writing.
I
...
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In the following essay, Schor contends that Sylvia's Lovers is a plotting of desire—especially female desire, which "works its own narrative transformations " and gestures ...
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In the following essay, Rogers contends that Gaskell's short story "Cousin Phillis" describes the predicament of the well-educated woman in Victorian Britain; his analysis also fo...
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In the essay that follows, Helms considers the manner in which Gaskell comes to understand herself in relation to Charlotte Brontë and thus combines the genres of biography and autobiography.
T...
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In the essay that follows, Mitchell discusses Gaskell's Ruth as a novel that attempts to respond to the problem of prostitution, in part by criticizing the presupposition that "fallen wo...
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In the essay that follows, Gallagher studies the influence of Gaskell's Unitarian understanding of moral freedom and responsibility on the writing of Mary Barton.
As in the Religion of Causati...
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In the following essay, Homans claims that Mary Barton and "Lizzie Leigh" are both enactments of a dialogue between mother and daughter, a dialogue that hinges on the transmission of the...
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In the following essay, Stoneman argues that Gaskell's writing, rather than reflecting the bifurcation of society along class and gender lines, tends to blur the sharpness of these distinctions...
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In the following essay, Martin discusses the role of the supernatural in Gaskell's novels and shorter works.
"Do you believe in ghosts?" someone is supposed to have asked Madame d...
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In the following essay, Pettitt uses “Cousin Phillis” to probe Elizabeth Gaskell's views of science and contemporary scientific culture.
Gaskell completed her novel Sylvia'...
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Throughout the novel North and South;, Elizabeth Gaskell uses setting as a means to demonstrate the main purposes of the novel. Contrast is employed masterfully by Gaskell in the themes of the novel ...
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Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
