The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

Joanne Shattock, Angus Easson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351220125
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria

Features Elizabeth Gaskell's work. This work brings together her journalism, her shorter fiction, which was published in various collections during her lifetime, her early personal writing, including a diary written between 1835 and 1838 when she was a young mother, her five full-length novels and "The Life of Charlotte Bronte".

THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË

This text follows the first edition of The Life of Charlotte Brontë, published by Smith, Elder in March 1857. It makes silent emendations in a few instances where an original typesetting error was corrected in the second edition, issued in April 1857. It does not emend for variations from the manuscript, now housed in the John Rylands Library, or for stylistic or substantive changes made in the second or third editions, the latter published with significant revisions in November 1857. All such changes are listed after the text in the variants.

Elizabeth Gaskell began research for the Life in June 1855, immediately after Patrick Brontë asked her to write a memoir of his daughter. She began composing in January 1856, perhaps earlier, but certainly before she had wrested the juvenilia from Arthur Nicholl’s hands, travelled to Belgium to meet Constantin Heger, interviewed Laetitia Wheelwright, Brontë’s Brussels friend, or read the letters to George Smith, publisher of Brontë’s novels and the Life. As she wrote, she sent progress reports to George Smith (240 foolscap pages by mid-August, 300 by early October), queried him (in early December) about the publication dates and critical reception of Jane Eyre, asked (in mid-December) whether he could begin printing with only part of the manuscript, and replied to his comments on the portion of the manuscript he had received in late-December 1856.¹ By her own estimate, Gaskell still had 200 pages to write when the printing began in January 1857. The Life was, in other words, a work in progress.

It was also a collaborative effort. While the conception of Brontë’s life and experience was Gaskell’s own, the composition of the text actively involved her husband, daughters, and publisher. Gaskell relied on her husband to correct infelicities of style and grammar, to offer advice on the extracts from Brontë’s letters, and even to supply one of the early anecdotes (the tale in Vol. I, Ch. 2, of the surgeon who refused to attend to a young lad with a severed artery). She had her daughters, Marianne and Meta, copy letters into the manuscript which she then edited for smooth transitions and social decorum. George Smith influenced the Life in his cautious insistence that she omit the name of T. C. Newby, the dubious publisher of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, and that she eliminate passages from Brontë’s letters that breached the biographical convention of speaking no ill of the living. Whether with or without her full consent, she allowed Smith to revise the manuscript, most notably the scene in Vol. II, Ch. 2, where Charlotte and Anne Brontë travel to London to prove the separate identities of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell. As the variants of this scene show, the published version differs significantly from the manuscript, with Smith’s role downplayed.

The printers of the Life might also be considered part of the collaborative effort, or at least participants in the usual nineteenth-century process of book production. Their last names remain in the manuscript, indicating where one left off and another resumed typesetting. By and large, they typeset the two-volume work accurately, following house conventions. Thus they standardised punctuation so that all quotations were preceded by both a colon and a dash; they standardised spelling and capitalisation, even in extracts from Brontë’s letters; and they may occasionally, if unintentionally, have substituted words. Their most notable substitution – surely a misreading of the manuscript – comes in Vol. II, Ch. 1, where for ‘their steady pacing’ in manuscript, a printer named Wilson typeset ‘their study, pacing’ – a misreading that Elizabeth and William Gaskell let stand through three editions and that this text retains. As the Gaskells corrected proofs, they read for fluency and sense, rather than for strict conformity to the original manuscript; we do not know what emendations they made on page proofs. It seems reasonable, therefore, not to make substitutes based on manuscript variants and to consider the first edition as the authoritative text.¹

That edition of 2,021 copies sold out quickly, and in April 1857 Smith, Elder published a second.² It is common practice to speak of the second edition as a reissue or reprint. The logic for so doing is that Elizabeth Gaskell was away in Italy when the Life appeared, and thus had no knowledge of its immediate success and no direct hand in the production of a second edition, which her publisher and her husband William oversaw in her absence. Nonetheless, the second is a new edition, being entirely reset and including more than ninety changes that William Gaskell introduced, some typesetting corrections but most stylistic and grammatical emendations. Elizabeth Gaskell accepted these changes into the third edition—except for one substantive change, a footnote about Tabitha Ackroyd at the start of Vol. I, Ch. 5.

The third edition involves a more complicated history. When Gaskell returned to England in June 1857, she encountered two quite different responses to the Life; critical acclaim and a ‘Hornet’s nest’. The acclaim came in reviews of the biography and personal letters from friends, strangers and literary acquaintances. G. H. Lewes, for example, wrote in April 1857 from the Scilly Isles, where he was staying with George Eliot, to tell Gaskell that he admired ‘the skill, delicacy and artistic power of your Biography’: ‘The book will, I think, create a deep and permanent impression.’¹ Charles Kingsley commented, ‘You have had a delicate and a great work to do, and you have done it admirably. Be sure that the book will do good.’²

The ‘Hornet’s nest’, a phrase Gaskell used in a letter to Ellen Nussey,³ was stirred up by characters unnamed by the Life, but known in their London or regional circles: Lady Scott, the former Mrs Robinson who had ‘seduced’ Branwell Brontë; the relatives of William Carus Wilson, founder of the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, who disputed Gaskell’s facts; an American from Ohio who sent ‘three sheets of angry abuse’ claiming that Brontë (and Gaskell) had maligned his mother in the character of ‘Miss Scatcherd’; and some literary figures, most notably Harriet Martineau, who wrote ‘sheet upon sheet regarding the quarrel? misunderstanding? between her & Miss Brontë’ and wished corrections to be inserted in any forthcoming edition.⁴ William Gaskell had already printed a retraction and apology to the unnamed Lady Scott in the London Times and the Athenaeum. Additions, corrections and clarifications were to follow in a third edition.

That edition, begun in mid-June and published in November 1857, contains not only these ‘corrections’ (all noted in the variants), but also fresh material sent by Mary Taylor, Brontë’s girlhood friend then living in New Zealand; supplementary information on the history of Haworth and local inhabitants; letters from Martha Brown, daughter of the Haworth sexton and the Brontës’ servant at the parsonage for many years; and even two more letters from CB to EG, added to the penultimate chapter. The fresh material adds to the reader’s knowledge of Charlotte Brontë and modifies impressions of some key figures, most notably Patrick Brontë. Yet producing a revised edition of the Life was clearly a burden. Gaskell wearily wrote to George Smith to ‘take out the pistol shooting’ (one of several objections to her depiction of Patrick Brontë), as ‘I am willing to “do anything for a quiet life”.’¹ She wrote to Harriet Martineau’s niece Maria: ‘I am in despair about “the public” … in consequence of all this, that I don’t feel as if any one would ever get me to rights.’²

Whether the third edition got it ‘to rights’ remains a matter of dispute. Mary Taylor called it a ‘mutilated edition’, and Mary Mohl, a Parisian friend, sent Gaskell an ironic preface to pass on to her publisher: ‘If anybody is displeased with any statement or words in the following pages I beg leave to with-draw it, and to express my deep regret for having offered so expensive an article as truth to the Public.’³ Angus Easson, a distinguished Gaskell scholar and scrupulous editor of the Life, argues for the greater truth of the third: ‘There is truth in tone … as well as in fact and the truth of the third edition is often more persuasive than the truth of the first.’⁴ Elisabeth Jay, another distinguished editor of the Life, suggests that the revisions for the third edition improve the work aesthetically, in that the new text ‘produce[s] an ever-tightening circle of gloom, now unalleviated by passionate outbursts’.⁵ Yet those passionate outbursts are fundamental to the story of the Life and Elizabeth Gaskell’s investment in it, as her letters to George Smith reveal. I have used the first edition as the copy-text because it is the edition in which Gaskell invested her energy ‘to perform this grave duty laid upon me well and fully’ and because, as Jay notes, it is ‘the edition that initially caused such a furore’⁶ – and that is part of the story too.

This edition follows the ‘house style’ of the first Smith, Elder edition, except that the treatment of quotations has been modernised to conform to current British punctuation, using single quotation marks initially, with double marks within quotations. Nineteenth-century punctuation reversed this order.

Notes

1. See Letters, pp. 345–8, 388, 398, 404–5, 417, 424–5, 428–34.

1. It is not clear how much of the proofs Elizabeth read and how much she left for her husband William to oversee. She finished the biography on 7 February 1857 and left for a holiday abroad on 13 February, telling George Smith on 11 February that Mr Gaskell ‘will complete all arrangements with you’ (Letters, p. 446).

2. 1,500 copies of the second edition were issued on 22 April 1857, and another 700 on 4 May, until all unsold copies were recalled on 26 May due to a threat of legal action from the solicitors of Lady Scott.

1. G. H. Lewes to EG, April 1857; rptd in Allott, pp. 329–30. See also EG’s responses to letters from the Revd R. S. Oldham, Charles Eliot Norton, and Charles Kingsley in Letters, pp. 448–9, 430–1, 432–3, as well as Angus Easson, Elizabeth Gaskell: The Criticial Heritage (London: Routledge, 1991).

2. Charles Kingsley to EG, 14 May 1857; rptd. in Allott, p. 343.

3. EG to Ellen Nussey, 16 June 1857, Letters, p. 453.

4. EG to George Smith, [mid-August 1857], Letters, p. 465, and EG to Ellen Nussey, 16 June [1857], Letters, p. 453.

1. EG to George Smith, [23 August 1857], Letters, pp. 467–8.

2. EG to Maria Martineau, [23 August 1857], Letters, pp. 466–7.

3. Mary Taylor to EN, 28 January 1858, in Joan Stevens (ed.), Mary Taylor (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1972), p. 134, and EG to George Smith, 17 June [1857], Letters, p. 455.

4. Easson, Elizabeth Gaskell, p. 150.

5. Jay, ‘The History of the Text’, p. xxxviii.

6. Jay, ‘A Note on the Text’, p. xl. Smith, Elder produced a fourth, ‘cheap’ edition of the Life late in 1859 (1860 on the titlepage), but EG had no direct involvement in its production. When she received a copy of this new, orange-covered edition, she wrote to George Smith on 30 November 1859: ‘This morning came the orange Charlotte Brontë for which many thanks. Only, (and I am going to be disagreeable so be prepared!) I wish you had let me know you were going to publish it’ (Letters, p. 593). EG regretted that she had not been allowed to excise a sentence about Harriet Taylor which, after corresponding with John Stuart Mill earlier in the year, she learned had wounded him deeply as he felt it ‘derogatory’ to his wife.

THE LIFE

OF

CHARLOTTE BRONTË,

AUTHOR OF

‘JANE EYRE,’ ‘SHIRLEY,’ ‘VILLETTE,’ & c.

BY

E. C. GASKELL,

AUTHOR OF ‘MARY BARTON,’ ‘RUTH,’ &c.

‘Oh my God,

——Thou hast knowledge, only Thou,

How dreary ’tis for women to sit still

On winter nights by solitary fires

And hear the nations praising them far off.’

AURORA LEIGH.¹

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER & CO., 65, CORNHILL.
1857.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I.

Description of Keighley and its neighbourhood – HaworthParsonage and Church – Tablets of the Brontë family

CHAPTER II.

Characteristics of Yorkshiremen – Manufactures of the West Riding – Descendants of the Puritans – A characteristic incident – Former state of the country – Isolated country houses – Two Yorkshire squires – Rude sports of the people – Rev. William Grimshaw, Curate of Haworth – His opinion and treatment of his parishioners – The ‘arvills,’ or funeral feasts – Haworth Field-Kirk – Church-riots at Haworth on the appointment of Mr. Redhead as Perpetual Curate – Arrival of Mr. Brontë^a at Haworth

CHAPTER III.

The Rev. Patrick Brontë – His marriage with Miss Branwell of Penzance – Social customs in Penzance – The Branwell family – Letters of Miss Branwell to Mr. Brontë – Marriage of Mrs. Brontë – Thornton, the birth-place of Charlotte Brontë – Removal to Haworth – Description of the Parsonage – The people of Haworth – The Brontë family at Haworth – Early training of the little Brontës – Characteristic anecdotes of Mr. Brontë – Death of Mrs. Brontë – Village scandal – Studies of the Brontë family –^b Mr. Brontë’s account of his children

CHAPTER IV.

Miss Branwell comes to Haworth – Account of Cowan’s Bridge (Lowood) School and the Rev. Carus Wilson –^c Originals of ‘Miss Scatcherd,’ ‘Helen Burns,’ and ‘Miss Temple’ – Outbreak of fever in the school – Characteristics of the Brontë sisters – Deaths of Maria and Elizabeth Brontë

CHAPTER V.

The old servant Tabby – Patrick Branwell Brontë – Charlotte Brontë’s catalogue of her juvenile productions, with specimen page – Extract from the introduction to ‘Tales of the Islanders’ – ‘History of the year 1829’ – Charlotte’s taste for Art – Extracts from other early writings in MS. – Charlotte’s mental tendencies and home duties – A strange occurrence at the Parsonage – A youthful effusion in verse

CHAPTER VI.

Personal description of Charlotte Brontë – Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head –^a Oakwell Hall and its legends – Charlotte’s first appearance at school – Her youthful character and political feelings – School days at Miss Wooler’s –^b Mr. Cartwright and the Luddites – Mr. Roberson of Heald’s Hall – Chapel scenes and other characteristics of Heckmond-wike and Gomersall

CHAPTER VII.

Charlotte Brontë leaves school, and returns home to instruct her sisters – Books at the Parsonage – A dreary winter – Letters to a friend^c visiting London for the first time – On the choice of books – On dancing – Character and talents of Branwell Brontë – Plans for his advancement – Prospect of separation

CHAPTER VIII.

Charlotte as teacher at Miss Wooler’s school – Emily’s home-sickness – Letters indicative of Charlotte’s despondency and melancholy – The sisters at home – Winter evenings at Haworth – Charlotte writes to Southey, and Branwell to Wordsworth – Branwell’s letter and verses – Prospect of losing the society of a friend – Charlotte’s correspondence with Southey – Letter written in a state of despondency – Accident to the old servant, and characteristic kindness of the Brontës – Symptoms of illness in Anne Brontë – Charlotte’s first proposal of marriage – Charlotte and Anne go out as governesses – Experiences of governess life –^d Advent of the first Curate at Haworth – A second proposal of marriage – A visit to the sea-side

CHAPTER IX.

Branwell Brontë still at home – Miss Branwell and her nieces – Plan of keeping a school – Charlotte commences her first story – The Curates at Haworth – Charlotte’s sentiments on marriage – She seeks and obtains a situation as governess 117

CHAPTER X.

Second experience of governess life – Project of a school revived, and plans for its realization – Miss Wooler’s offer of her school declined^a

CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Brontë accompanies his daughters to Brussels –Charlotte’s impressions...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Bibliography
• Abbreviations
• The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Volume I
• The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Volume II
• Explanatory Notes
• Textual Notes
• Appendix A: Illustrations
• Appendix B: Running Heads