Book Series Guide

Elizabeth Gaskell

Author guide

Elizabeth Gaskell Books in Order

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865) was an English Victorian novelist, biographer, and short-story writer. She lived most of her married life in Manchester, where her experiences informed works including Mary Barton and North and South. Her major fiction also includes Cranford, Ruth, Sylvia's Lovers, and the unfinished Wives and Daughters. She wrote the influential biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë and published numerous stories in Victorian periodicals, later collecting many of them in volumes such as Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales, Round the Sofa, Right at Last and Other Tales, Lois the Witch and Other Tales, Cousin Phillis and Other Tales, and The Grey Woman and Other Tales.

Victorian literatureindustrial fictionsocial-problem novelhistorical fictiondomestic fictionbiographyshort storiesGothic fiction

Catalog record updated .

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Start with one of these

Cover of North and South

North and South

A widely accessible major novel combining romance, industrial conflict, class analysis, and social change.

Cover of Cranford

Cranford

A concise, characteristic novel showcasing Gaskell's humor, community portraiture, and quietly humane social observation.

Cover of Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

Her breakthrough industrial novel and a strong entry point to the social concerns underlying her fiction.

Outside the series

Bibliography by category

Novels (10)
  1. Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life

    novel · 1848

  2. The Moorland Cottage

    novella · 1850

    Maggie Browne, the daughter of a deceased clergyman, is encouraged to give up her own life and passions and devote herself to her brother Edward. Through the example and guidance of her mother—who dotes on Edward constantly—and her…

  3. Ruth

    novel · 1853

    Ruth Volume 2 By Elizabeth Gaskell A sensitive portrayal of relationships within small towns and an exploration of seduction and illegitimacy within a small Dissenting community where tolerance and rigid morality clash.

  4. Cranford

    novel · 1853

    <p><i>Cranford</i> was first serialized in <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens">Charles Dickens’</a> magazine <i>Household Words</i> between 1851 and 1853. The structureless nature of the stories, and the fact that…

  5. North and South

    novel · 1855

    When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in…

  6. My Lady Ludlow

    novella · 1858

    Lady Ludlow is absolute mistress of Hanbury Court and a resolute opponent of anything that might disturb the class system into which she was born. She will keep no servant who can read and write and insists that the lower orders have no…

  7. Sylvia's Lovers

    novel · 1863

    A powerfully moving novel of a young woman caught between the attractions of two very different men, Sylvia's Lovers is set in the 1790s in an English seaside town. England is at war with France, and press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing…

  8. A Dark Night's Work

    novel · 1863

  9. Cousin Phillis

    novella · 1864

    From the book:It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a…

  10. Wives and Daughters: An Every-Day Story

    novel · 1866

    This final, unfinished novel by Elizabeth Gaskell was first published as a serial between 1864 and 1866. After her death it was completed by Frederick Greenwood. The plot revolves around a character living in a provincial English town in…

Nonfiction (1)
  1. The Life of Charlotte Brontë

    biography · 1857

    Intertwining fact and story, The Life of Charlotte Bronte takes the reader by one hand and Charlotte Bronte by the other to run rampant through the making of one of the greatest authoresses of all time. Follow Charlotte from her…

Short fiction (6)
  1. Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1855

  2. Round the Sofa and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1859

  3. Right at Last and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1860

  4. Lois the Witch and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1861

    Lois the Witch and Other Tales is an 1861 collection of five stories byElizabeth Gaskell.In the title story, LoisBarclay is raised in a parsonage in Barford, Warwickshire but as shebecomes a young woman both her parents die. In 1691 she…

  5. Cousin Phillis and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1865

  6. The Grey Woman and Other Tales

    short-story-collection · 1865

Collaborations (3)
  1. A House to Let

    co-authored-story-collection · 1858

    Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870), also known as "Boz," was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Considered one of the English language's greatest writers, he was acclaimed for…

  2. The Haunted House

    co-authored-story-collection · 1859

  3. Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings

    co-authored-story-collection · 1863

Frequently asked questions about Elizabeth Gaskell

Who was Elizabeth Gaskell?

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865), often called Mrs Gaskell, was an English Victorian novelist, short-story writer, and biographer. Her writing addressed social change and difficult questions of class, gender, and reform.

Sources: npg.org.uk (opens in a new tab)manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk (opens in a new tab)

Where was Elizabeth Gaskell born, and where did she grow up?

She was born in Chelsea, London, on 29 September 1810. After her mother’s death, she spent her childhood with her aunt in Knutsford, Cheshire.

Source: westminster-abbey.org (opens in a new tab)

How did Manchester influence Elizabeth Gaskell’s writing?

After marrying the Unitarian minister William Gaskell in 1832, she settled in Manchester. The city’s industrial growth and working-class hardships strongly shaped her social fiction and her observations of Victorian society.

Sources: library.manchester.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk (opens in a new tab)

What was Elizabeth Gaskell’s connection to Charlotte Brontë?

Gaskell was a friend of Charlotte Brontë and wrote a biography of her after Brontë’s death. Published in 1857, it was controversial but became a major literary success and an important work of women’s life-writing.

Sources: npg.org.uk (opens in a new tab)penguin.co.uk (opens in a new tab)

What is Elizabeth Gaskell’s literary legacy today?

Gaskell remains an important Victorian writer whose work is studied for its humane portrayal of industrial society, family life, and social inequality. Her legacy is commemorated by a memorial in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner and major manuscript holdings at the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library.

Sources: westminster-abbey.org (opens in a new tab)library.manchester.ac.uk (opens in a new tab)