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Elizabeth Gaskell : A Habit of Stories
Elizabeth Gaskell won fame and notoriety as the author of "Mary Barton". This biography looks at Elizabeth's life and work, looking at how Elizabeth observed, from her Manchester home, the brutal but transforming impact of industry and writing down the truth of what she observed.
690 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 16, 2020
Had to update my review to add that Jenny Uglow was a historical advisor to the 2007 adaptation of Cranford. I suppose that's why there is a glorious abundance of bonnets, always the first historical detail to go out the window in most productions.
One of the best biographies I've read! Jenny Uglow brings Gaskell to sparkling, intimate life in an utterly readable, dense volume.
Last summer, I had the privilege of visiting Gaskell's home in Manchester. I've visited the homes of several female authors now, and this was one of the best experiences. All the volunteers were wonderfully knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I'd definitely recommend going to this site if you're ever in the north of England.
Uglow's research astonishes me. Not only does she have an encyclopedic knowledge of Gaskell's letters, she also researched all the family's letters (including distant relatives and those who barely overlapped with Gaskell's life) and literally everything and everyone who came into contact with Gaskell. Her quotations are choice, adding humor and insight to the text, not just showing off how much time she spent with faded ink in the archives.
Structured around Gaskell's life, of course, this biography also includes a lovely amount of detail on Gaskell's writings. Uglow takes us up to the point of Gaskell's completion of a major work, and then has a chapter of literary criticism. The story summary happens alongside her criticism, making it easy to read whether you've read the novels or not. (I've only read Cranford, some short stories, and North and South, though Wives and Daughters is next on my list.) I found this very enlightening and helpful as I choose whether or not to read the whole of Gaskell's corpus. My appetite for Victorian literature is limited, and there are few authors whose entire backlists I'll commit to reading.
The Gaskells were an intriguing family, being Unitarian Dissenters in the Victorian age of transition. Their circles were vast and they were friends with some of the great literary and scientific minds of their generation (Gaskell was related to Charles Darwin; she was a close friend of Charlotte Brontë; she corresponded with George Eliot, et c.). I found Gaskell's editorial relationship with Charles Dickens particularly delightful to read about.
I'd long heard of Gaskell's connection with Charlotte Brontë. However, the only Brontë novel I've read is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne. Wuthering Heights is a no-go for me, and I've been prejudiced against Jane Eyre since encountering someone who claimed it as her favorite novel, and proceeded to treat the mentally ill in a Rochesterian manner. Uglow's biography helped me learn more about Charlotte Brontë (she was married?) and Gaskell's close friendship with her. It filled in a literary lacuna for me that I managed to avoid confronting in my English literature degree.
Jenny Uglow has mastered the art of biography. Even the subtitle, A Habit of Stories, expresses Gaskell's life. First, Gaskell published steadily for nearly 30 years. Second, Gaskell could be a bit of a gossip, especially in letters (though burning letters was a fairly common practice among casual, intimate letter-writers). Third, Uglow notes, Gaskell put on the role of storyteller like a habit, living in her work and working with varied amounts of discipline. Though I started reading this biography because of Gaskell, I realized it was a model work for instructing myself in the art of biographical writing.
I'd highly, highly recommend this to anyone who loves the author of Cranford and many other beloved novels; to anyone who wants to learn about Victorian literary practices and circles from the perspective of a famed author but not a lioness like Eliot or Brontë; and to anyone who loves a really immersive literary biography.
One of the best biographies I've read! Jenny Uglow brings Gaskell to sparkling, intimate life in an utterly readable, dense volume.
Last summer, I had the privilege of visiting Gaskell's home in Manchester. I've visited the homes of several female authors now, and this was one of the best experiences. All the volunteers were wonderfully knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I'd definitely recommend going to this site if you're ever in the north of England.
Uglow's research astonishes me. Not only does she have an encyclopedic knowledge of Gaskell's letters, she also researched all the family's letters (including distant relatives and those who barely overlapped with Gaskell's life) and literally everything and everyone who came into contact with Gaskell. Her quotations are choice, adding humor and insight to the text, not just showing off how much time she spent with faded ink in the archives.
Structured around Gaskell's life, of course, this biography also includes a lovely amount of detail on Gaskell's writings. Uglow takes us up to the point of Gaskell's completion of a major work, and then has a chapter of literary criticism. The story summary happens alongside her criticism, making it easy to read whether you've read the novels or not. (I've only read Cranford, some short stories, and North and South, though Wives and Daughters is next on my list.) I found this very enlightening and helpful as I choose whether or not to read the whole of Gaskell's corpus. My appetite for Victorian literature is limited, and there are few authors whose entire backlists I'll commit to reading.
The Gaskells were an intriguing family, being Unitarian Dissenters in the Victorian age of transition. Their circles were vast and they were friends with some of the great literary and scientific minds of their generation (Gaskell was related to Charles Darwin; she was a close friend of Charlotte Brontë; she corresponded with George Eliot, et c.). I found Gaskell's editorial relationship with Charles Dickens particularly delightful to read about.
I'd long heard of Gaskell's connection with Charlotte Brontë. However, the only Brontë novel I've read is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne. Wuthering Heights is a no-go for me, and I've been prejudiced against Jane Eyre since encountering someone who claimed it as her favorite novel, and proceeded to treat the mentally ill in a Rochesterian manner. Uglow's biography helped me learn more about Charlotte Brontë (she was married?) and Gaskell's close friendship with her. It filled in a literary lacuna for me that I managed to avoid confronting in my English literature degree.
Jenny Uglow has mastered the art of biography. Even the subtitle, A Habit of Stories, expresses Gaskell's life. First, Gaskell published steadily for nearly 30 years. Second, Gaskell could be a bit of a gossip, especially in letters (though burning letters was a fairly common practice among casual, intimate letter-writers). Third, Uglow notes, Gaskell put on the role of storyteller like a habit, living in her work and working with varied amounts of discipline. Though I started reading this biography because of Gaskell, I realized it was a model work for instructing myself in the art of biographical writing.
I'd highly, highly recommend this to anyone who loves the author of Cranford and many other beloved novels; to anyone who wants to learn about Victorian literary practices and circles from the perspective of a famed author but not a lioness like Eliot or Brontë; and to anyone who loves a really immersive literary biography.
November 20, 2022
Reading this was a perfect follow up after finishing my goal of reading the remaining three Gaskell novels (Ruth, Sylvia’s Lovers, and Mary Barton) this year. I can’t remember reading a literary biography that so deftly combines biography and literary criticism. Each of Gaskell’s six novels gets a full chapter (as does her Life of Charlotte Bronte) and Jenny Uglow’s exploration of each one is so thoughtful. I especially loved her chapters on Sylvia’s Lovers and Wives and Daughters. My favorite exploration of Gaskell’s shorter work was Cousin Phillis. I also love reading about an author’s writing process from the germ of the idea all the way through the piece’s publication. There are details abundant here too.
When I closed the biography after the last chapter, I was moved and sad. Gaskell’s life was absolutely filled to the brim with activity and people and she literally died in the middle of speaking a sentence. That feels so apropos. I felt that I had come to know Gaskell and her daughters almost as friends by the end. I was moved by her daughters’ stories as well. Gaskell was very close to her daughters, and I could feel their grief on their mother’s death. The eldest daughter lived the longest and died in 1920. Her second born daughter Meta and her youngest daughter Julia were mountain climbers!
The early chapters of the biography were more leisurely, and I enjoyed learning about the Unitarian community in England and how interconnected it was. Gaskell’s early years were more conventional as she married and had children and supported her husband William’s work as a minister and teacher. And yet being a Unitarian created an interesting dynamic. On the one hand, Unitarians were a fringe group. On the other hand, there were plenty of wealthy, well connected, and ambitious Unitarians so this sub-group really seemed a force to be reckoned with. Fascinating!
When her writing career takes off after Mary Barton, the tone of the biography changes because Gaskell’s life was suddenly filled even more to the brim with visits, letter writing, fiction writing, networking, travel, etc. For the last 15 years of her life, she seemed to be away from Manchester more than she was there. I pictured her as being much more rooted in Manchester, so I found her incessant desire to travel both puzzling and fascinating (and tiring!). At some point early on, I gave up trying to keep track of who all the people were and how she was connected to all the places she went. Seriously, you’d need an intense character map to keep it all straight. It all boils down to the fact that Gaskell was incredibly well connected and was capable of sustaining numerous, one may say scads!, of relationships. She is rather like a jolly spider in the middle of a great web. Sometimes I honestly wondered how she managed to write so much when it seemed like she was constantly dashing hither and yon and dashing off letters.
I love how her exuberant and gossip/story loving personality overflowed into writing. Her writing gave her an incredible means of using her gift for storytelling and her endless interest in human lives. I love details about people’s lives, so I giggled when Uglow would quote from her letters begging for all the details from her correspondents. What did they eat? Wear? Buy? See? Hear? Etc. Gaskell was indefatigable. She could worm what she wanted to know out of you, so beware!
Her writing met with quite mixed reviews in her own day. There were even people who burned copies of Ruth because of its depiction of an unmarried mother. Uglow points out how often Gaskell used her fiction as a way to explore unanswerable questions, to put flesh onto abstract ideas like class conflicts, the suffering of the poor, the place of women, and much more. Gaskell was sometimes contradictory in her ideas and her “answers” but she always came down on the side of the dignity of each human. There is always a story waiting to be told.
My new goal, as a follow up to reading this, is to read Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Bronte in 2023.
When I closed the biography after the last chapter, I was moved and sad. Gaskell’s life was absolutely filled to the brim with activity and people and she literally died in the middle of speaking a sentence. That feels so apropos. I felt that I had come to know Gaskell and her daughters almost as friends by the end. I was moved by her daughters’ stories as well. Gaskell was very close to her daughters, and I could feel their grief on their mother’s death. The eldest daughter lived the longest and died in 1920. Her second born daughter Meta and her youngest daughter Julia were mountain climbers!
The early chapters of the biography were more leisurely, and I enjoyed learning about the Unitarian community in England and how interconnected it was. Gaskell’s early years were more conventional as she married and had children and supported her husband William’s work as a minister and teacher. And yet being a Unitarian created an interesting dynamic. On the one hand, Unitarians were a fringe group. On the other hand, there were plenty of wealthy, well connected, and ambitious Unitarians so this sub-group really seemed a force to be reckoned with. Fascinating!
When her writing career takes off after Mary Barton, the tone of the biography changes because Gaskell’s life was suddenly filled even more to the brim with visits, letter writing, fiction writing, networking, travel, etc. For the last 15 years of her life, she seemed to be away from Manchester more than she was there. I pictured her as being much more rooted in Manchester, so I found her incessant desire to travel both puzzling and fascinating (and tiring!). At some point early on, I gave up trying to keep track of who all the people were and how she was connected to all the places she went. Seriously, you’d need an intense character map to keep it all straight. It all boils down to the fact that Gaskell was incredibly well connected and was capable of sustaining numerous, one may say scads!, of relationships. She is rather like a jolly spider in the middle of a great web. Sometimes I honestly wondered how she managed to write so much when it seemed like she was constantly dashing hither and yon and dashing off letters.
I love how her exuberant and gossip/story loving personality overflowed into writing. Her writing gave her an incredible means of using her gift for storytelling and her endless interest in human lives. I love details about people’s lives, so I giggled when Uglow would quote from her letters begging for all the details from her correspondents. What did they eat? Wear? Buy? See? Hear? Etc. Gaskell was indefatigable. She could worm what she wanted to know out of you, so beware!
Her writing met with quite mixed reviews in her own day. There were even people who burned copies of Ruth because of its depiction of an unmarried mother. Uglow points out how often Gaskell used her fiction as a way to explore unanswerable questions, to put flesh onto abstract ideas like class conflicts, the suffering of the poor, the place of women, and much more. Gaskell was sometimes contradictory in her ideas and her “answers” but she always came down on the side of the dignity of each human. There is always a story waiting to be told.
My new goal, as a follow up to reading this, is to read Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Bronte in 2023.
December 3, 2012
Biography at its best. Captivating portrait of the talented Elizabeth Gaskell. I am so into her and this lovely biography these days. If you have not read either, please do. Thanks again to the friend who sent this to me - a lovely surprise and a fine read.
February 8, 2017
Jenny Uglow's biography of Elizabeth Gaskell is thoroughly comprehensive. To me, this actually feels like two books in one: a detailed account of Gaskell's life vividly recreated through first hand accounts and letters, as well as critical analyses of each of Gaskell's books. I would have preferred the two to have been separated. This is a very dense volume.
Nobody knows Elizabeth Gaskell better than Jenny Uglow. Unfortunately, that fact sometimes feels detrimental in the telling of Gaskell's life story. There is a great deal of minutiae within the pages of this book and it didn't take long for me to start skimming through accounts of every individual Gaskell visited with, what they ate, how they spent every minute of their days, etc. While I think such details can be illustrative, I'm not sure they need to form the majority of the book's biographical sections. For me, a better approach would have been for Uglow to have sifted through the details rather than including them. It is hard to get a clear picture of Elizabeth Gaskell through such thick and numerous examples
Similarly, the critique portions of the book rely heavily on quotations from Gaskell's books as well as complete summaries of each. It seems to me that Uglow could have assumed a familiarity with Gaskell's work in the readers of her biography, and proceeded from there. She does a fine job of placing each novel within the context of time, place, and history (both personal and cultural), which is very useful. Her interpretations are sometimes obvious, sometimes unexpected, but always illuminating. However, I did find it a little jarring to interrupt the flow of Gaskell's life story with full chapters analyzing each of her books.
Overall, this is an interesting and insightful biography of a woman who managed to pursue her passion while maintaining her position as a wife and mother in Victorian England. I think Elizabeth as an individual could have been portrayed more clearly by eliminating so much of the excessive detail throughout, but I commend Uglow for her knowledge of and commitment to her subject.
Nobody knows Elizabeth Gaskell better than Jenny Uglow. Unfortunately, that fact sometimes feels detrimental in the telling of Gaskell's life story. There is a great deal of minutiae within the pages of this book and it didn't take long for me to start skimming through accounts of every individual Gaskell visited with, what they ate, how they spent every minute of their days, etc. While I think such details can be illustrative, I'm not sure they need to form the majority of the book's biographical sections. For me, a better approach would have been for Uglow to have sifted through the details rather than including them. It is hard to get a clear picture of Elizabeth Gaskell through such thick and numerous examples
Similarly, the critique portions of the book rely heavily on quotations from Gaskell's books as well as complete summaries of each. It seems to me that Uglow could have assumed a familiarity with Gaskell's work in the readers of her biography, and proceeded from there. She does a fine job of placing each novel within the context of time, place, and history (both personal and cultural), which is very useful. Her interpretations are sometimes obvious, sometimes unexpected, but always illuminating. However, I did find it a little jarring to interrupt the flow of Gaskell's life story with full chapters analyzing each of her books.
Overall, this is an interesting and insightful biography of a woman who managed to pursue her passion while maintaining her position as a wife and mother in Victorian England. I think Elizabeth as an individual could have been portrayed more clearly by eliminating so much of the excessive detail throughout, but I commend Uglow for her knowledge of and commitment to her subject.
January 20, 2020
Uglow is a tirelesss research, illuminating the art and politics and culture of Gaskell's time. The reading she did in Gaskell's works alone was amazing. Her analysis of Gaskell's works lit them up; she even piqued my curiosity about, and appreciation for, works that get less attention because they are early or less perfected. Uglows sympathetic, detailed, vivid writing made Gaskell and her family real, and I loved that she ended with letting us in on what happened with the rest of family after Gaskell's death. I did have a tough time with first chapters, which bring on a bigger cast than a Russian novel.
November 22, 2018
Stunningly beautiful biography of Elizabeth Gaskell which also does mini-bios of each of her books. Loved this book, love Gaskell, and thank God we have Jenny Uglow in the world bringing us such great historical reads!
July 4, 2024
Lit lady I gotta say
July 18, 2021
4.5 rounded up for affection's sake
For the last 3 months, I've had this book hanging around me all the time like a comfort blanket and now I'm done with it, I almost feel at a loss. Elizabeth Gaskell was already one of my top 2 favorite authors but this made me fall in love with her herself; I certainly don't think we would have agreed on everything and this doesn't shy away from her faults, but it paints such an engaging portrait of her that I feel like you can't help but fall a little in love with her (and also her family by extension). My copy is all tabbed up and highlighted and when I've read the works of hers that I haven't gotten to yet, I'll definitely come back and re-read those chapters for deeper understanding.
The writing is very accessible but sometimes quite confusing; there are so many people and names involved and quite a few of the people have multiple names and it's not always clear when and why Uglow switches between them, leading to quite a few times when I've been like "who tf is this???" only to realize it's someone I've been reading about for 400 pages who just has a different nickname now. But overall, I do really enjoy the way Uglow make sense of what was clearly a very busy and bustling life full of people and places, most of which I'm not familiar with. It's evident that Uglow has a lot of affection for Gaskell and genuinely finds much of what she covers in this very interesting and her enthusiasm is contagious at times. I wasn't particularly interested in reading several of Gaskell's novels before because I knew the plots enough to know I would probably find them frustrating or sad, but now I think I'll probably end up picking up all her major works and really want to get my hands on her short stories because Uglow explores them in a really engaging way. I wish my #1 favorite book, North and South, had gotten a bit more attention; I feel like it got overshadowed really quickly by The Life of Charlotte Brontë, but I also recognize that this biography is already 700 pages long and was difficult to hold and read as it was (and also, I'm not sure any length of chapter would have been long enough for me lmao).
Also I do hate Dickens a little more now but I already had mixed feelings about him so that's not really news aslfkhs;skjdf
For the last 3 months, I've had this book hanging around me all the time like a comfort blanket and now I'm done with it, I almost feel at a loss. Elizabeth Gaskell was already one of my top 2 favorite authors but this made me fall in love with her herself; I certainly don't think we would have agreed on everything and this doesn't shy away from her faults, but it paints such an engaging portrait of her that I feel like you can't help but fall a little in love with her (and also her family by extension). My copy is all tabbed up and highlighted and when I've read the works of hers that I haven't gotten to yet, I'll definitely come back and re-read those chapters for deeper understanding.
The writing is very accessible but sometimes quite confusing; there are so many people and names involved and quite a few of the people have multiple names and it's not always clear when and why Uglow switches between them, leading to quite a few times when I've been like "who tf is this???" only to realize it's someone I've been reading about for 400 pages who just has a different nickname now. But overall, I do really enjoy the way Uglow make sense of what was clearly a very busy and bustling life full of people and places, most of which I'm not familiar with. It's evident that Uglow has a lot of affection for Gaskell and genuinely finds much of what she covers in this very interesting and her enthusiasm is contagious at times. I wasn't particularly interested in reading several of Gaskell's novels before because I knew the plots enough to know I would probably find them frustrating or sad, but now I think I'll probably end up picking up all her major works and really want to get my hands on her short stories because Uglow explores them in a really engaging way. I wish my #1 favorite book, North and South, had gotten a bit more attention; I feel like it got overshadowed really quickly by The Life of Charlotte Brontë, but I also recognize that this biography is already 700 pages long and was difficult to hold and read as it was (and also, I'm not sure any length of chapter would have been long enough for me lmao).
Also I do hate Dickens a little more now but I already had mixed feelings about him so that's not really news aslfkhs;skjdf
July 21, 2008
It took a little while for me to fully get into this book, perhaps in part because its been a while since I read anything so academic (e.g. it has footnotes) which is not in itself a bad thing, in fact it took me back to my University days in some ways! But perhaps I found it a little hard work at first simply due to all the names and connections of both family and friends mentioned (I think a family tree along with the footnotes would have been very useful). Still I found it a very interesting read, especially fascinating to find that Elizabeth had been great friends with Charlotte Bronte! Overall very enjoyable and it makes me want to read more of her novels (I confess only to have read Mary Barton -and that was a long time ago).
March 29, 2015
A previous reviewer mentioned being confused by all the names flying through the book's pages, and I do agree that I sometimes had to backtrack to identify who was who. But the tumult seemed to match Mrs. Gaskell's personality - garrulous, erratic, but always interested in others and therefore herself interesting. I did enjoy reading about a woman currently off the radar of literary popularity, but a contemporary of Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, and, moreover, a woman who managed to balance a writing career with marriage, motherhood, and social activism. The lady had it together.
February 14, 2016
This is the first Jenny Uglow book I did not adore unconditionally. It's as much a biography of Gaskell's writing as it is her life; you'd think since I love Gaskell, this would be heavenly. It's not. It's too long, there are so many unanswered questions about other people in her life, and I already knew her works, so I found those chapters tedious.
For all that, it's still great reading, just not as amazing as her later biographies.
For all that, it's still great reading, just not as amazing as her later biographies.
March 2, 2014
Having just read and loved 'Cranford', I launched into this biography of Elizabeth Gaskell. It is extremely thorough, some of it documented with fascinating letters and reviews. Jenny Uglow gives good commentary into Gaskell's works as well as her life, so even though I haven't read some of Gaskell's body of work I was still able to gain valuable insights into her writings. A terrific biography.
October 17, 2018
Loved this so much. I was engrossed completely. Others have said they didn’t enjoy the literary analysis as much. That it should have been a separate book. I loved it. It reignited my love of literary analysis and will send me back to the novels.
I started this book because I felt I knew do little about Gaskell. Now that I’ve finished it’s going to leave a big hole in my reading life.
I started this book because I felt I knew do little about Gaskell. Now that I’ve finished it’s going to leave a big hole in my reading life.
August 2, 2010
This is a very long book, so I skipped over some parts and skimmed others. In the parts I was interested in, I was glad there was a lot of detail. There is quite a bit of commentary about Gaskell's most important works, as well as information about her life.
November 13, 2016
I know now about Elizabeth Gaskell who was just a name to me till I read this book.
Jenny Uglow always writes a good book. If I have one complaint it is that there are too many characters but that really isn't her fault I suppose.
Jenny Uglow always writes a good book. If I have one complaint it is that there are too many characters but that really isn't her fault I suppose.
April 4, 2011
An excellent biography of one of my favourite Victorian writers - a gift from my brother. It's best to have read all of her major novels before reading this since they are discussed in detail.
March 23, 2016
The topical format did not work as well as a chronological order.
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July 22, 2022
Jenny Uglow must have been beyond exhausted by the time she finished this monster-tome of Elizabeth Gaskill. There is so much research, thought and reflection in this book, honestly I think it would require several readings to digest everything, which at a page count of kicking on 700 is an ask. It is an amazing book, truely. I loved it. I feel like I have lived Gaskill's life. Almost read all her novels. She is one of my top authors now.
Admittedly it has taken me a few months to get through this, and that's not to suggest it's boring or unreadable. But there's so much in it, I need time to digest a little between chapters, and also to read other things along side. I took an eight week course on Gaskill at the start of this year and the tutor mentioned this book and that the chapters can be read in isolation. Which I'd agree with, and in fact, I didn't read the book in order, although I have now read all the chapters. So if you're studying her, there's about two chapters specifically per book, one about the background and writing of, and the other a more literary appraisal of the book itself. Just gold if you're studying Gaskell.
So much in this that I can't summarise, and her early life now feels like a distant memory as I read it a while ago. I'll end with one wonderful fact about Elizabeth as a young mother. When her daughter was one or two years old, she wrote a journal for a year, about mothering, her worries, about her daughter and how she loved her. Elizabeth's own mother died when she was just a tot and she wanted something to be there for her own daughter, just in case. As time would tell, Elizabeth lived to see all her daughters grow up. This journal has been passed on and is now with either a granddaughter or great granddaughter - can you imagine what a wonderful thing that would be to inherit?
Admittedly it has taken me a few months to get through this, and that's not to suggest it's boring or unreadable. But there's so much in it, I need time to digest a little between chapters, and also to read other things along side. I took an eight week course on Gaskill at the start of this year and the tutor mentioned this book and that the chapters can be read in isolation. Which I'd agree with, and in fact, I didn't read the book in order, although I have now read all the chapters. So if you're studying her, there's about two chapters specifically per book, one about the background and writing of, and the other a more literary appraisal of the book itself. Just gold if you're studying Gaskell.
So much in this that I can't summarise, and her early life now feels like a distant memory as I read it a while ago. I'll end with one wonderful fact about Elizabeth as a young mother. When her daughter was one or two years old, she wrote a journal for a year, about mothering, her worries, about her daughter and how she loved her. Elizabeth's own mother died when she was just a tot and she wanted something to be there for her own daughter, just in case. As time would tell, Elizabeth lived to see all her daughters grow up. This journal has been passed on and is now with either a granddaughter or great granddaughter - can you imagine what a wonderful thing that would be to inherit?
August 19, 2023
An exhaustive (and occasionally, slightly exhausting!) account of Gaskell's life and work.
Uglow writes well, and I appreciated her insights into Gaskell's writings. Gaskell was obviously a multi-talented and exceptionally energetic woman who was in advance of her time in many ways, especially regarding her treatment of those whom most Victorians would regard as 'the undeserving'. I was also interested to read about her husband, William, who had very advanced views on equality in marriage - bearing in mind how rare that was in a Victorian male, it seems a shame that he married a woman who, judging by her writing, was obviously attracted to controlling men. I can't help feeling that Elizabeth Gaskell would have been difficult to live with though - and found it mind-boggling that she would happily go into large amounts of debt, buying a house for her husband in a totally different part of England without telling anyone - including him! - about it.
I did feel that some of the detail could have been edited out of the book. We didn't really need to hear the minutiae of every single visit Gaskell made, nor did we need such a detailed retelling of every one of her stories and novels. Those of us who have already read her books don't need it, and for those who haven't, surely it is better to read the original than a rehash? For this reason, it gets 4 stars, not 5. I would recommend this book to any keen Gaskell enthusiast (although you may want to skip over the plot summaries), but it's probably too much information for those with only a passing interest.
Uglow writes well, and I appreciated her insights into Gaskell's writings. Gaskell was obviously a multi-talented and exceptionally energetic woman who was in advance of her time in many ways, especially regarding her treatment of those whom most Victorians would regard as 'the undeserving'. I was also interested to read about her husband, William, who had very advanced views on equality in marriage - bearing in mind how rare that was in a Victorian male, it seems a shame that he married a woman who, judging by her writing, was obviously attracted to controlling men. I can't help feeling that Elizabeth Gaskell would have been difficult to live with though - and found it mind-boggling that she would happily go into large amounts of debt, buying a house for her husband in a totally different part of England without telling anyone - including him! - about it.
I did feel that some of the detail could have been edited out of the book. We didn't really need to hear the minutiae of every single visit Gaskell made, nor did we need such a detailed retelling of every one of her stories and novels. Those of us who have already read her books don't need it, and for those who haven't, surely it is better to read the original than a rehash? For this reason, it gets 4 stars, not 5. I would recommend this book to any keen Gaskell enthusiast (although you may want to skip over the plot summaries), but it's probably too much information for those with only a passing interest.
September 21, 2023
This was one of the most tedious biographies I’ve ever read. It will serve as a nice reference when rereading Gaskell’s books, but as a vehicle for getting to know Elizabeth Gaskell, it presents a barrier of words. Where a few sentences would suffice to describe a new acquaintance in Gaskell’s life, we get bogged down in paragraphs. Stories are repeated unnecessarily - we’re told about Gaskells’ friendship with Bronte in the early pages and then told more thoroughly (but no more interestingly) later in the book.
There are some enjoyable details and I found Uglow’s discussion of Cranford quite engaging, but generally there were too many minute particulars - parts of the book read like Gaskell’s engagement calendar - and the lengthy treatment of each novel and story was excessive.
Uglow describes the journal that carried Elizabeth’s first published works as “a rather bland soup” and that is an apt description of this book too. I think part of the problem I have with the book is that Uglow takes a top down view, giving us a topographical perspective of the times and Gaskell’s place in them. I would rather have gotten to know Gaskell as a person, and even though there are ample quotations from Gaskell’s letters, these are somehow less insightful because they are so buried in prose that reads like an encyclopedia entry.
There are some enjoyable details and I found Uglow’s discussion of Cranford quite engaging, but generally there were too many minute particulars - parts of the book read like Gaskell’s engagement calendar - and the lengthy treatment of each novel and story was excessive.
Uglow describes the journal that carried Elizabeth’s first published works as “a rather bland soup” and that is an apt description of this book too. I think part of the problem I have with the book is that Uglow takes a top down view, giving us a topographical perspective of the times and Gaskell’s place in them. I would rather have gotten to know Gaskell as a person, and even though there are ample quotations from Gaskell’s letters, these are somehow less insightful because they are so buried in prose that reads like an encyclopedia entry.
October 29, 2023
'Mrs Gaskell's genius was so composite as a quality, it was so obviously the offspring of her affections, her feelings, her associations, and (considering that, after all, it was genius) was so little of an intellectual nature . . . But genius is of many kinds, and we are almost tempted to say that that of Mrs Gaskell strikes us as being little else than a peculiar play of her personal character.' Henry James in Uglow pgs 602-3.
The lead review on GR's by Melody Schwarting is perhaps the best and most complete review I've read.
I highly recommend this to those of you interested in mid Victorian literature, women and history. I also highly recommend reading it in parallel with one of her novels. I chose 'North and South.' Difficult to express how enjoyable it was.
The lead review on GR's by Melody Schwarting is perhaps the best and most complete review I've read.
I highly recommend this to those of you interested in mid Victorian literature, women and history. I also highly recommend reading it in parallel with one of her novels. I chose 'North and South.' Difficult to express how enjoyable it was.
April 28, 2022
I was totally engrossed in this biography. Elizabeth Gaskell might have live in the middle of the nineteenth century but so many of her concerns and experiences are valid today, in particular the tension for a woman writer with children, between family and career. I was also surprised to learn how much of a cultural centre industrial Manchester was in mid-Victorian England and how much Mrs Gaskell travelled in Europe at a time when the railways were only just being built.
It's a long read but one I was sorry to finish.
It's a long read but one I was sorry to finish.
August 28, 2020
An excellent biography. What a woman she was
April 1, 2024
Lively and fully detailed biography with interesting crits and summaries of the stories, including some less well-known ones. 616 pages before the Notes etc.!
Want to read
May 1, 2021eek dnf im so ashamed but like I haven't read a book in a long time so imma give myself an easier book to read ;)
got this from albris for 70p. 70p. 70p . Let's have a cheer for second hand bookshops. also i love lizzy gaskell so that's that. AND SHE'S SO FEMINISTY I LOVE....
got this from albris for 70p. 70p. 70p . Let's have a cheer for second hand bookshops. also i love lizzy gaskell so that's that. AND SHE'S SO FEMINISTY I LOVE....
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