‘A conscientious and well-informed Victorian mother’: Elizabeth Gaskell's letters to her daughters

Abstract

Unlike the majority of the major female authors of the Victorian period, Elizabeth Gaskell was a mother, and her understanding of motherhood was one of the defining preoccupations of both her life and her fiction. In her lively and intimate letters to her four daughters, Gaskell provides a fascinating insight into mid-Victorian motherhood. ‘Conscientious and well-informed’, frank and self-reflexive, Gaskell's letters reflect the social and intellectual ferment of the period and shed light on some of the most pressing issues faced by mothers of the period, including the psychological development and education of children, the Victorian crises of religious schism and unbelief, and the rise of feminism.