Wives & Daughters

Elizabeth Gaskell in the year of her marriage

I was so into starting this, I sort of read the first 7 chapters. Oops. I promise to wait till next week to talk about them!

Like many of the famous authors of the 19th century, Gaskell originally published Wives and Daughters in a periodical. Cornhill Magazine was a competitor of Dickens's own All the Year Around, and its first editor was William Makepeace Thakeray of Vanity Fair fame.

I was looking at my edition of Wives and Daughters, and the author blurb said that Elizabeth Gaskell married a Unitarian pastor. In the 1800's novels were frowned upon by most pastors, so it would seem to be an odd match. But the Unitarians, whose outlook on religion was 'Everybody's right!', were more concerned with social issues than deciding whether novels were wholesome or not. I'm curious to see whether traces of Mrs. Gaskell's "theology" will show up in the book.

Also from the cover of my book, it appears as if Darwinism might make an appearance. One of the characters in Wives and Daughters is an avid naturalist, and Gaskell mentions one of his interests being comparative anatomy. If I remember what I learned in biology, comparative anatomy and Darwinism go hand in hand.

Apparently, Gaskell died before she finished the book, so I guess we all get to imagine how it ends. However, the second editor of Cornhill Magazine decided to finish it (presumably to keep the subscribers happy) and the last chapter is written by him. I wonder if he made it all up himself or whether Gaskell left behind notes that he followed? Hmmmmm......