Critical assessments of Elizabeth Gaskell have tended to emphasise the regional and provincial aspects of her writing, but the scope of her influence extended across the globe. Building on theories of space and place, the contributors to this collection bring a variety of geographical, industrial, psychological, and spatial perspectives to bear on the vast range of Gaskell’s literary output and on her place within the narrative of British letters and national identity. The advent of the railway and the increasing predominance of manufactory machinery reoriented the nation’s physical and social countenance, but alongside the excitement of progress and industry was a sense of fear and loss manifested through an idealization of the country home, the pastoral retreat, and the agricultural south. In keeping with the theme of progress and change, the essays follow parallel narratives that acknowledge both the angst and nostalgia produced by industrial progress and the excitement and awe occasioned by the potential of the empire. Finally, the volume engages with adaptation and cultural performance, in keeping with the continuing importance of Gaskell in contemporary popular culture far beyond the historical and cultural environs of nineteenth-century Manchester.
Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: Placing Gaskell, Sarina Moore, Emily Morris, and Lesa Scholl. Part I Home Geographies: Gaskell on the waterfront: leisure, labor, and maritime space in the mid-19th century, Robert Burroughs; The humanizing transformations of the space of the home in Gaskell’s Cranford, Nóra Séllei; `You might pioneer a little home’: hybrid spaces, identities, and homes in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, Divya Athmanathan; Grave matters: gothic places and kinetic spaces in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, Emily K. Cody. Part II Mobility and Boundaries: Unimagined community and disease in Ruth, Katherine Inglis; Temporally out of sync: migration as fiction and philanthropy in Gaskell’s life and work, Fariha Shaikh; Moving between North and South: cultural signs and the progress of modernity in Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel, Lesa Scholl; In search of shared time: national imaginings in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, Mary Mullen. Part III Literary and Imagined Spaces: Catching the post: Elizabeth Gaskell as traveler and letter-writer, Kathrin Levitan; Gaskell the ethnographer: the case of `modern Greek songs’, Anna Koustinoudi and Charalampos Passalis; Reading `an every-day story’ through bifocals: seriality and the limits of realism in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters, Julia M. Chavez; Gaskell’s `rooted’ prose realism, Josie Billington. Part IV Cultural Performance and Visual Spaces: Applied meteorology: scientific accuracy and imaginative writing in Elizabeth Gaskell’s `Cousin Phillis’ and Wives and Daughters, Frances Twinn; Women’s voices in the Pre-Raphaelite space of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels, Sophia Andres; `Look back at me’: the material re-performance of the Victorian in North and South (2004), Amy L. Montz. Conclusion: Gaskellian prospects, Emily Morris, Sarina Gruver Moore, and Lesa Scholl; Index.
