Elizabeth Gaskell and her Readers: From "Howitt's Journal" to the "Cornhill"

Gaskell wrote with these readers in mind. [...]she was conscious that even at that the price of a penny half-penny (1 1/2d), Howitt's Journal, which ceased publication in 1848, would not reach as many readers as she had hoped. [...]she agreed to the reprinting of 'Libbie Marsh's Three...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Gaskell journal 2011-01, Vol.25, p.77-87
Main Author: SHATTOCK, JOANNE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
British & Irish literature
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
English literature
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Gaskell wrote with these readers in mind. [...]she was conscious that even at that the price of a penny half-penny (1 1/2d), Howitt's Journal, which ceased publication in 1848, would not reach as many readers as she had hoped. [...]she agreed to the reprinting of 'Libbie Marsh's Three Eras' as a pamphlet in 1850, and again in 1852 and 1855, although she became irritated by the over-enthusiastic efforts of a Mr Marples in Liverpool in this respect (see Letters, p. 172). According to Meta Gaskell, her mother was so disheartened by the furore surrounding the publication of her Life of Charlotte Brontë, and influenced, too, by her new friendship with the American scholar Charles Eliot Norton, whom she met in Rome in 1857, that she considered channelling her periodical publications into American journals, and approached the Atlantic Monthly. [...]I think we should salute her sheer professionalism - not a word which was used by her early critics and obituarists - who bestowed a kind of amateur status on her, presenting her as the busy wife and mother who found time to write.
ISSN:2041-8582