Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories
by Jenny Uglow
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Description
Winner of the Portico Prize Shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year High-spirited, witty and passionate, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote some of the most enduring novels of the Victorian age, including Mary Barton, North and South and Wives and Daughters. This biography traces Elizabeth's youth in rural Knutsford, her married years in the tension-ridden city of Manchester and her wide network of friends in London, Europe and America. Standing as a figure caught up in the religious and show more political radicalism of nineteenth century Britain, the book looks at how Elizabeth observed, from her Manchester home, the brutal but transforming impact of industry, enjoying a social and family life, but distracted by her need to write down the truth of what she saw. In this widely acclaimed biography, Elizabeth Gaskell emerges as an artist of unrecognized complexity, shrewdly observing the political, religious and feminist arguments of nineteenth century Britain, with enjoyment, passion and wit. Jenny Uglow is the bestselling author of Nature's Engraver, which won the National Arts Writers Award, and A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize. Her most recent books include Nature's Engraver, the story of Thomas Bewick, and In These Times, a history of the home front during the Napoleonic Wars. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a wonderful bio, providing insight into this marvelous Victorian author. Uglow provides a rich analysis of the novels and short stories and novellas in the context of Gaskell's life with family and friends, which gives a richer understanding of the works themselves. Well-written, chock full of interesting anecdotes, and replete with extensive notes.
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historical biographies : great lives, well told
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Author Information
Jenny Uglow is an editor at Chatto & Windus and lives in Canterbury, England
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories
- Original publication date
- 1993
- People/Characters
- Elizabeth Gaskell; William Gaskell; Charles Dickens
- Important places
- Manchester, England, UK
- Epigraph
- 'We have only to look at a portrait of Mrs Gaskell, soft-eyed, beneath her charming veil, to see that she was a dove . . . she was all a woman was expected to be; gentle, domestic, tactful, prone to tears, easily shocke... (show all)d. So far from chafing at the limits imposed on her activities, she accepted them with serene satisfaction.
Lord David Cecil, 1934
I feel a stirring instinct and long to be off . . . just like a bird wakens up from its content at the change of the seasons . . . But . . . I happen to be a woman instead of a bird . . . and . . . moreover ... (show all)I have no wings like a dove to fly away.
Elizabeth Gaskell to Mary Howitt, 1838 - Dedication
- To J. A. V. Chapple
and the Gaskell Society - First words
- On a wintry day in October 1831 Elizabeth Stevenson, soon to be Elizabeth Gaskell, was writing to her friend Harriet, scribbling at speed, her curling script crossing and recrossing the crowded page: 'Oh this windy miserable ... (show all)weather; I am writing near a window where puffs of wind come through every now & then, & chill my intellects -- you will ask why I don't move -- I suppose it is my vis inertia, and my being in a most comfortable arm chair -- but I am squeezing myself into as small a compass as I can to collect all the warmth.'
- Quotations
- You know I can tell stories better than any other way of expressing myself.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She would have liked that.
- Blurbers
- Moore, Caroline; Franks, Katherine; Easson, Angus; Carey, John
- Original language
- English UK
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 224
- Popularity
- 145,717
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.53)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 2
