Anthony Burton has written a new booklet that outlines just why Elizabeth Gaskell is the most versatile of storytellers. And it’s free to read!
As Gaskell scholar Alan Shelston wrote in a 2013 essay, Gaskell is “arguably the most diverse of the earlier Victorian novelists”.
Anthony looks into this statement and shows us a rich variety of genres represented in Gaskell’s novels, novellas and short stories. Sections include Manchester & the North; Manchester Stories; Village Tales; the Industrial Novel; the Social Problem Novel; Family Sagas; Historical Fiction, and Crime & Ghost Stories.
Gaskell’s literary canon, created during a career of less than twenty years, spans all of these genres and more – she was a prolific writer, with a far-reaching appetite for telling stories from all walks of life.