The Life and Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

Join us for a new talk from renowned local storyteller, former York teacher and Dickens enthusiast, Brian Oxberry. Brian was a member of the Charles Dickens Society and Dickens Museum in Malton. 

This time, Brian discusses Elizabeth Gaskell, an author most famous for her novel, North and South.

Elizabeth lived on the outskirts of Manchester and saw at first hand the horrors, filth, poverty and death as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Her first novel, ‘Mary Barton’ reflects this. Charles Dickens was impressed and asked her to write for his newly created magazine ‘Household Words’. So she began her most famous novel ‘Cranford’, which the BBC adapted for television about twenty years ago. It starred York’s most famous export, Dame Judy Dench. Gaskell was the first novelist to write about prostitution and also the first to introduce a detective.