Why You Need to Read Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell was a pioneer of Victorian Fiction. A friend of Charles Dickens, her novels focused on the rich and poor alike, often taking in conditions and themes that other authors shied away from. Plus she was a female author who fearlessly challenged the status quo. That’s not all though, we’re just getting started! Here’s why you need to read Elizabeth Gaskell.

Today, it can often be hard to imagine a world before the rights we take for granted existed. The universal right to vote, for both men and women, for example. Or perhaps safe working conditions that won’t send us to an early grave. But in the 1840s and 50s when Elizabeth Gaskell was writing, neither of these things was a given. In fact, Elizabeth herself would never live to see the introduction of Votes for Women. The anniversary of which the UK is celebrating in 2018.

Fiction Forged in the Heart of the Industrial Revolution

As the wife of Unitarian Minister, her personal life took her to some of the most destitute and horrendous areas of Victorian England. If you need any proof, the Manchester that she and her husband moved to in 184X had inspired the almost contemporaneous polemic: “The Condition of the Working Class in England” by Friedrich Engels (the co-author of The Communist Manifesto). And where life expectancy was

One of the reasons you need to read Elizabeth Gaskell is her unflinching approach to portraying the reality of Victorian life. Never one to shy away from the truth, Elizabeth Gaskell turned these harsh realities into politically charged fiction that can still resonate with modern readers today. Her approach to tackling the important issues of a rapidly changing world make for inspired fiction too. For anyone interested in social history her works offer a little glimpse into a different side of Victorian life.

In her first novel, Mary Barton, for example, she tackles the difficulties face by the Victorian Working Class. Her heroine, Mary is the daughter of a mill-worker who has begun to question the distribution of wealth. Amongst other themes, it charts the rise of socialism as a result of the unfair living and working condition. Themes she would later hone and expand upon in North & South. Upon its release, it divided opinion. Many claimed that Elizabeth Gaskell was too unfair in her portrayal whilst others hailed it as a well-needed wake-up call.

But It’s Not All Dark Mills and Grim Conditions…

Never fear! Her novels aren’t all focused in the mill towns of Northern England. In recent years, the made for TV adaptation of Cranford has introduced her work to many new readers. In Cranford, a novella, Elizabeth Gaskell takes a turn for the Austen. By moving the setting away from the industrial and into the country cottage she gives scope to her appetite for wit and melodrama. In fact, in later years, her fiction increasingly turns inward from the large in scope industrial novels to the familial and every day. Her novels such as Wives and Daughters is a good example of this.

When you read Elizabeth Gaskell, whether the Industrial North & South or character driven Cranford, it is the female-driven narrative that most strikes you. Victorian fiction of this kind often features secondary female characters who are largely relegated to the sidelines of major plot lines. Not so in Elizabeth Gaskell’s work. Her novels are brimming with complex narratives and well fleshed out female roles.

An Authentic Voice in Victorian Fiction

Gaskell notably always included local dialect in her novels. Presenting her characters authentically, in a way that they would have spoken in everyday life.

Importantly, she doesn’t use this as a differentiator between her working class and middle-class characters. Instead, words like “Nesh” and “Unked” find themselves used in even the most genteel drawing room.

Again, in a world where we increasingly steer clear of Received Pronunciation, it’s hard to imagine a time when this needed to be defended as she did in a letter to her friend:

“You will remember the country people’s use of the word “unked”. I can’t find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort, and I sometimes “potter” and “mither” people by using it.”