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The novelist and biographer Elizabeth Cleghorn
Gaskell (1810 to 1865), was brought up by her aunt in Knutsford,
Cheshire.
 Mrs
Gaskell's literary output was varied, and included not only numerous
short stories, tales of mystery, murder and the supernatural, the
anecdotal and amusing Cranford, for which she is perhaps
best known, Mary Barton which deals with unemployment, drug
addiction and poverty, Ruth the story of an unmarried mother;
and the novel North and South, set in Manchester.
The Life of Charlotte Bronte, was a pioneer work of literary
biography; Sylvia's Lovers, a historical novel about Whitby;
Cousin Phillis, a love story set in the Cheshire countryside;
and the novel she had almost completed when she died in 1865, Wives
and Daughters. Her letters are full of interest, detail and
wit, and make fascinating reading, although none to her husband
survive.
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Elizabeth Gaskell
