Elizabeth Gaskell, whose biography will be described in this article, is one of the prominent figures in Victorian literature.
Childhood and youth
The father of the writer was William Stevenson, who served as a priest of the Unitarian church in the town of Failsworth. In 1806, he resigned, 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, everyone else died in infancy.
The mother of the writer Elizabeth Holland was originally from the Midlands. When the baby was only one year old, the mother left this world, leaving her bewildered husband and two children.
What to do with little Lizzy, Mr. Stevenson had no idea, so he gave it to his sister Hannah in the county of 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.
Since 1821, Elizabeth Gaskell studied at school with Miss Byrlies, then in a boarding school in Stratford-upon-Avon. There she received a traditional education, received knowledge from the field of art and etiquette.
While Lizzy was raised with her aunt, her father remarried and he had more children: William and Katrina.
At sixteen, the girl returned to London to see the Holland family. She spent some time with her family friend William Turner in Newcastle upon Tyne and in Edinburgh.
Marriage
On August 30, 1832, Elizabeth happily married William Gaskell, who, like his father, was a Unitarian priest. They spent their honeymoon with Uncle Elizabeth Samuel Holland in North Wales.
Later, the family settled in Manchester, where she lived her whole life. William worked at the Cross Street Unitary Chapel. Elizabeth was raising children.
Their first child was born in 1833, it was a dead girl. In 1834 Marianne was born, in 1837 - Margaret Emily, in 1842 - Florence, in 1844 - son William, in 1846 - daughter Julia.
Unfortunately, in 1845, this family suffered a huge tragedy. From scarlet fever died little William. Elizabeth Gaskell could not recover from the tragedy, then her husband suggested filling the void with some kind of business. And since Elizabeth loved to write (kept diaries of the development of her children), it was decided that she would be engaged in writing.
Creation
Back in 1836, Elizabeth Gaskell, co-authored with her husband, published poetry in the Blackwood magazine. But I did not think about professional activities. After were the publication of notes on rural life. After William brought her a lot of literature from Germany, Elizabeth, inspired, decided to create a work of art.
The first major creation of Elizabeth Gaskell was the novel "Mary Barton", published in 1848. Then followed by Cranford, Ruth, North and South, and others.
Gaskell was friends with another great Victorian novelist, Charlotte Bronte. After the death of the latter in 1855, her father turned to the writer with a request to write a biography of his daughter. In 1857, the book Biography of Charlotte Bronte was published.
Elizabeth Gaskell, whose works have her own unusual literary style and diverse themes, is among the brilliant English novelists along with W. Thackeray, the Bronte sisters, C. Dickens.
Her latest novel, “Wives and Daughters,” was incomplete. As in other works, the life of a provincial town was described here. This book was subsequently added by journalist Frederick Greenwood.
In recent works of the writer (including in the novel "North and South"), the role of religiosity and sentimentality is strengthened.
Death
Elizabeth Gaskell died in Hampshire in 1865 from a heart attack. She was fifty-five years old.