Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society, including the very poor, and are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë, published in 1857, was the first biography of Brontë. In this biography, she only wrote the moral, sophisticated things in Brontë’s life, the rest she left out, deciding that certain -more salacious aspects- of her life were better kept hidden. Some of Gaskell's best known novels are Cranford (1851–53), North and South (1854–55), and Wives and Daughters(1865).

Publications:

Novels:

  • Mary Barton (1848)
  • Ruth (1853)
  • North and South (1854–55)
  • Sylvia's Lovers (1863)
  • Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story (1865)

Novellas and collections:

  • The Moorland Cottage (1850)
  • Mr. Harrison's Confessions (1851)
  • Cranford (1851–53)
  • The Old Nurse's Story (1852)
  • Lizzie Leigh (1855)
  • My Lady Ludlow (1859)
  • Round the Sofa (1859)
  • Lois the Witch (1861)
  • A Dark Night's Work (1863)
  • Cousin Phillis (1864)

Short stories:

  • Libbie Marsh's Three Eras (1847)
  • The Sexton's Hero (1847)
  • Christmas Storms and Sunshine (1848)
  • Hand and Heart (1849)
  • The Well of Pen-Morfa (1850)
  • The Heart of John Middleton (1850)
  • Disappearances (1851)
  • Bessy's Troubles at Home (1852)
  • The Old Nurse's Story (1852)
  • Cumberland Sheep-Shearers (1853)
  • Morton Hall (1853)
  • Traits and Stories of the Huguenots (1853)
  • My French Master (1853)
  • The Squire's Story (1853)
  • Half a Life-time Ago (1855)
  • Company Manners (1854)
  • The Poor Clare (1856)
  • The Doom of the Griffiths (1858)
  • Right at Last (1858)
  • The Manchester Marriage (1858)
  • The Haunted House (1859)
  • The Crooked Branch (1859)
  • The Half-brothers (1859)
  • Curious If True (1860)
  • The Grey Woman (1861)
  • The Cage at Cranford (1863)
  • Crowley Castle (1863)

Non-fiction:

  • Sketches Among the Poor (poems 1837)
  • An Accursed Race (1855)
  • The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)
  • French Life (1864)