Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories

As the other reviewers have said, this is an excellent biography of a fascinating Victorian woman. I read the book while working on my master's thesis on Elizabeth Gaskell and social class. The biography was obviously an invaluable resource on Gaskell's life, but it was also a pleasure to read. Uglow has captured all the contradictions that Gaskell embodied in her life and in her fiction. Furthermore, the biography is very readable and will appeal to those beyond academia, especially as Gaskell is enjoying renewed popularity thanks to recent BBC/Masterpiece theater adaptations of her works. Now that my thesis is finished, I'm excited to read Uglow's biography on another Victorian woman novelist--George Eliot!

Elizabeth Gaskell is a wonderful subject for a biography--a prolific author, a wife and mother, activist, traveller, friend, letter writer, gossip, dancer, and intellectual--and Jenny Uglow does right by her. This bio is imminently readable, chock full of anecdotes, throughly researched with the notes and citations to prove it, and hard to put down. Interspersed with Uglow's of the details of Gaskell's busy life are chapters devoted to literary analysis of Gaskells novels, novellas, and major stories. With Gaskell's fame as an author again on the rise, thanks to the recent excellent adaptations of Wives and Daughters, North and South, and Cranford (which also included Lady Ludlow and Mr. Harrison's Confession), this bio provides much needed insight into the life and works of one of Manchester's favorite daughters. I especially enjoyed the section that dealt with Gaskell's interesting relationship with Charlotte Bronte. She befriended Bronte and counseled her with regards to her relationship with the man who would become her husband, and she also wrote the first bio of Bronte, which is itself fascinating to read.

I read this book with absolute relish. It's one of the most informative and lively literary biographies I've ever read and it's one I refer to often as I explore the works of Gaskell and the other Victorians in her literary circle. I've not read a better bio of Gaskell and I've read few better bios on any subject. Very highly recommended!