Elizabeth Gaskell (Key Women Writers)

As the author of "domestic" and "political" novels, Elizabeth Gaskell has a divided image. Patsy Stoneman's pioneering feminist study looks closely at the reason for this split, seeing it as the result of treating class and gender as separate issues, and offers a radical rereading by considering them in conjunction. Though her work displays little "rage and rebellion," Gaskell is shown to maintain an informed and steady resistance to aggressive authority, advocating the importance of female friendship, rational motherhood, and the power of speech as forces for social change.