Editing Elizabeth Gaskell (section)

==Literary style and themes==
[[File:Miss Matty and Peter.jpg|thumb|right|A scene from [[Cranford (novel)|''Cranford'']], illustrated by [[Sybil Tawse]].]]
Gaskell's first novel, ''[[Mary Barton]]'', was published anonymously in 1848. The best-known of her remaining novels are ''[[Cranford (novel)|Cranford]]'' (1851–1853), ''[[North and South (Gaskell novel)|North and South]]'' (1854–1855), and ''[[Wives and Daughters]]'' (1864–1866). She became popular for her writing, especially her [[ghost stories]], aided by [[Charles Dickens]], who published her work in his magazine ''[[Household Words]]''. Her ghost stories are in the "[[Gothic fiction|Gothic]]" vein, making them quite distinct from her "industrial" fiction.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

Even though her writing conforms to Victorian conventions, including the use of the name "Mrs. Gaskell", she usually framed her stories as critiques of contemporary attitudes. Her early works were highly influenced by the social analysis of [[Thomas Carlyle]] and focused on factory work in the Midlands.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Grasso |first=Anthony R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Nvdx-4-CzoC |title=The Carlyle Encyclopedia |publisher=[[Fairleigh Dickinson University Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8386-3792-0 |editor-last=Cumming |editor-first=Mark |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |pages=186–188 |chapter=Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn |url-access=limited}}</ref> She usually emphasized the role of women, with complex narratives and realistic female characters.<ref>Excluding reference to Gaskell's Ghost Stories, Abrams, M.&nbsp;H., et al. (eds), "Elizabeth Gaskell, 1810–1865". ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature, The Major Authors: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century'', 7th ed., Vol.&nbsp;B. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. {{ISBN|0-393-97304-2}}. DDC 820.8—dc21. LC PR1109.N6.</ref> Gaskell was influenced by the writings of [[Jane Austen]], especially in ''North and South,'' which borrows liberally from the courtship plot of ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sussman |first1=Matthew |title="Austen, Gaskell, and the Politics of Domestic Fiction" |journal=Modern Language Quarterly |date=March 2022 |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=1–26 |doi=10.1215/00267929-9475004 |s2cid=247141954 |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/modern-language-quarterly/article/83/1/1/294319/Austen-Gaskell-and-the-Politics-of-Domestic |access-date=5 June 2023}}</ref> She was an established novelist when Patrick Brontë invited her to write a biography of his daughter, though she worried, as a writer of fiction, that it would be "a difficult thing" to "be accurate and keep to the facts."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Easson |first1=Angus |title="Introduction" to The Life of Charlotte Brontë |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-955476-8 |page=xi}}</ref> Her treatment of class continues to interest social historians as well as fiction readers.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Children in Early Victorian England: Infant Feeding in Literature and Society, 1837-1857|first=V.|last=PHILLIPS|date=1 August 1978|journal=Journal of Tropical Pediatrics|volume=24|issue=4|pages=158–166|doi=10.1093/tropej/24.4.158|pmid=364073}}</ref>

===Themes===
[[Unitarianism]] urges comprehension and tolerance toward all religions and even though Gaskell tried to keep her own beliefs hidden, she felt strongly about these values which permeated her works; in ''North and South'', "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the [[Dissenter]], Higgins the [[Infidel]], knelt down together. It did them no harm."<ref>{{cite book |title=North and South |last=Gaskell |first=Elizabeth |year=1854–55 |publisher=Penguin Popular Classics |isbn=978-0-14-062019-1|page=277}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Elizabeth Gaskell |last=Easson |first=Angus |year=1979 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |isbn=0-7100-0099-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/elizabethgaskell0000eass/page/12 12–17] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/elizabethgaskell0000eass/page/12 }}</ref>

===Dialect usage===
Gaskell's style is notable for putting local dialect words into the mouths of middle-class characters and the narrator. In ''North and South'' Margaret Hale suggests ''[[wikt:redd|redding]] up'' (tidying) the Bouchers' house and even offers jokingly to teach her mother words such as ''[[wikt:knobstick|knobstick]]'' (strike-breaker).<ref name="Ingham">Ingham, P. (1995). Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of ''North and South''.</ref> In 1854 she defended her use of dialect to express otherwise inexpressible concepts in a letter to [[Walter Savage Landor]]:

{{blockquote|...&nbsp;you will remember the country people's use of the word "[[wikt:unked|unked]]". I can't find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort, and I sometimes "[[wikt:potter#Etymology_2|potter]]" and "[[wikt:mither|mither]]" people by using it.<ref name="Ingham" /><ref name="Letters">Chapple JAV, Pollard A, eds. ''The Letters of Mrs Gaskell''. Mandolin (Manchester University Press), 1997</ref>}}

She also used the dialect word "[[nesh]]" (a person who feels the cold easily or often feels cold is said to be 'nesh'), which goes back to [[Old English]], in ''Mary Barton'':

{{blockquote|Sit you down here: the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold.<ref>{{cite book | last = Gaskell | first = E. | year = 1848 | title = Mary Barton | url = https://archive.org/details/marybartonbyecg01bartgoog | chapter = 1}}.</ref>}}

also in ''North and South'':

{{blockquote|And I did na like to be reckoned nesh and soft,<ref>{{cite book |title=North and South |last=Gaskell |first=Elizabeth |year=1854–55 |publisher=Penguin Popular Classics |isbn=978-0-14-062019-1}}</ref>}}

and later in "The Manchester Marriage" (1858):

{{blockquote|Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl.
}}

and:

{{blockquote|
At Mrs Wilson's death Norah came back to them, as a nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day.<ref>{{cite book | url = http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15252/15252.txt | series = Victorian Short Stories | title = Stories of Successful Marriages | publisher=The Project Gutenberg}}.</ref>
}}