Adapting the Past: Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Collaboration

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This article reproduces the lecture delivered at the Brontë Society’s Annual General Meeting in 2024. Examining established views of Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), it makes two research-based propositions: 1) Gaskell derived the bulk of its content from exchanges with Charlotte Brontë, and 2) the pejorative nature of its reputation originates in unchallenged condemnations made on publication in 1857. It shows that criticisms of The Life often rest on the following assumptions: that complaints of slander from then-living individuals are accepted at face value, that Gaskell fictionalised events, and that the book’s assumed unreliability is confirmed by Gaskell’s public apologies and redactions. By interrogating these with reference to the written record, the lecture argues that the original complaints of slander cannot be upheld, that Gaskell’s research was comprehensive, and that her public admissions were performative concessions to prevent defamation actions and cannot be considered incontrovertible.