Patsy stoneman elizabeth gaskell biography

Elizabeth Gaskell was one of the most famous female authors of Victorian England. Her writing illuminated the plight of the working class and other sometimes difficult and unpleasant social issues.

Born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson in London, Gaskell was the daughter of a Unitarian minister. She moved to the village Knutsford to live with an aunt when her mother died. She married William Gaskell in 1832 and they settled in the city of Manchester.

She worked with her husband in his ministry, but the condition of the poor in Manchester began to stir her thoughts and sympathy.

Gaskell's literary career did not begin until the middle of her life, when her only son died.

Patsy stoneman elizabeth gaskell biography books

She focused her attention on the poor in the industrial community in her novel Mary Barton (1848). The novel chronicles a working-class family struggling to survive and the class conflicts and hatred they face. Many critics were harsh in their reviews because of her open sympathy for the working class.

Her novel