Elizabeth Gaskell

When Patsy Stoneman's Elizabeth Gaskell first appeared in 1987, it was welcomed as 'the first major full-length feminist study of Gaskell' (Victorian Studies). Though long out of print, it is still widely used and cited in university contexts, making it certain that this augmented edition will be equally welcome. This pioneering study, described as 'a model of feminist criticism' (The Year's Work in English Studies), reveals Gaskell as an important social analyst who deliberately challenged the Victorian disjunction between public and private ethical values, maintaining a steady resistance to aggressive authority and advocating female friendship, rational motherhood and the power of speech as forces for social change. Since 1987, Gaskell's work has risen from minor to major status. Despite a wealth of subsequent gender-oriented criticism, however, Stoneman's 'combination of psychoanalytic and political analysis', which Choice found 'thought-provoking' in 1987, remains challenging in its use of modern motherhood theories. This new edition, therefore, presents the original text unchanged (except for bibliographical updating) together with a new critical Afterword. Patsy Stoneman's extensive new Afterword offers detailed evaluation of all the Gaskell criticism published between 1985 and 2004 which has a bearing on her subject, and thus provides both a wide-ranging debate on the social implications of motherhood, and an invaluable survey of Gaskell criticism over the last twenty years. This edition, with an updated bibliography and index, will bring a well-known classic to a new audience, while also offering a uniquely comprehensive overview of current Gaskell studies. Book jacket.