Elizabeth Gaskell: short biography

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Elizabeth Gaskell, whose biography will be described in this article, is one of the prominent figures in the literature of the Victorian era.

Childhood and youth

The writer's father was William Stevenson, who served as a Unitarian priest in the town of Failsworth. In 1806 he retired and the family settled in London. Elizabeth was born in Chelsea in 1810. The little girl was the eighth child in the family, but apart from her older brother John, no one survived, all the rest died in infancy.

The mother of writer Elizabeth Holland was from the Midlands. When the baby was only a year old, the mother left this world, leaving a confused husband and two children.

What to do with little Lizzie, Mr. Stevenson had no idea, so he gave her to be raised by his sister Hannah in Cheshire. Her brother John stayed with his father for a while, and then went to serve in the Royal Navy. He went missing in 1827 during an expedition to India.

From 1821, Elizabeth Gaskell went to school with Miss Byrleys, then at a boarding school in Stratford-on-Avon. There she received a traditional education, knowledge of art and etiquette.

While Lizzie was raised by her aunt, her fatherremarried and had more children: William and Katrina.

At sixteen, the girl returned to London to see the Holland family. Spent some time with family friend William Turner in Newcastle upon Tyne and Edinburgh.

Marriage

August 30, 1832, Elizabeth happily married William Gaskell, who, like his father, was a Unitarian minister. They spent their honeymoon with Elizabeth's uncle Samuel Holland in North Wales.

Later the family settled in Manchester, where they lived all their lives. William worked at the Cross Street Unitarian Chapel. Elizabeth was involved in raising children.

Their first child was born in 1833, it was a dead girl. Marianne was born in 1834, Margaret Emily in 1837, Florence in 1842, son William in 1844, daughter Julia in 1846.

Unfortunately, in 1845 a great tragedy befell this family. Little William died of scarlet fever. Elizabeth Gaskell could not recover from the tragedy, then her husband offered to fill the void with some business. And since Elizabeth loved to write (she kept diaries of the development of her children), it was decided that she would take up writing.

Creativity

As far back as 1836, Elizabeth Gaskell, in collaboration with her husband, published poems in Blackwood magazine. But I did not think about professional activity. After there were publications of notes about rural life. After William brought her a lot of literature from Germany, Elizabeth, inspired, decided to createartwork.

The first major creation of Elizabeth Gaskell was the novel "Mary Barton", published in 1848. Then followed "Cranford", "Ruth", "North and South" and others.

Gaskell was friends with another great Victorian novelist, Charlotte Bronte. After the latter's death in 1855, her father turned to the writer with a request to write a biography of his daughter. In 1857, the book "The Life of Charlotte Brontë" was published.

Elizabeth Gaskell, whose works have their own extraordinary literary style and diverse themes, is one of the brilliant English novelists along with W. Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, C. Dickens.

Her latest novel "Wives and Daughters" was unfinished. As in other works, the life of a provincial town was described here. This book was subsequently completed by journalist Frederick Greenwood.

In the latest works of the writer (including the novel "North and South"), there is an increase in the role of religiosity and sentimentality.

Death

Elizabeth Gaskell died in Hampshire in 1865 of a heart attack. She was fifty-five years old.