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...

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 "social-problem" novels but insists that they be regarded...

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 eagles Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, to borr...

I begin with some problematic sightseeing. In its 1855 survey of charitable activity in London, The Quarterly Review described the spectacle of freshly opened dark space brought to light in the recent street clearances: The reader may, perhaps, have seen the...

The Alchemist Nicholas Hytner's production at the National, writes Christopher Tayler, goes to great lengths to wring the maximum number of laughs from Ben Jonson's comedy. There are sight gags involving John Prescott and - for political balance? - Joan Collins. Jacobean conmen...

In the following excerpt, Lucas attributes the flaws in Mary Barton to Gaskell's failure to deal honestly with the social conditions she was attempting to represent.

In the essay that follows, Craik contends that although Gaskell's Mary Barton is concerned with issues of social reform, it avoids a didactic tone in order to emphasize realistic situations and characters.

In the following excerpt, Ganz discusses the authenticity of Gaskell's representation of working-class problems in Mary Barton.