- Paperback: 544 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classic (Mar 1 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0140434933
- ISBN-13: 978-0140434934
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13.8 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 358 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#208,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #59 in Books > Nonfiction > Women's Studies > Women Writers
- #88 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Books & Reading > Women Writers & Feminist Theory
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
Elizabeth Gaskell's Life appeared in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim among Victorian readers curious to discover more about the writer who had given Jane Eyre the subtitle, An Autobiography.
In writing about Charlotte Brontë, whom she greatly admired, but whose novels she did not entirely like, Elizabeth Gaskell portrays the struggle of a woman artist for whom she had, until her late marriage, "foreseen the single life".
The resulting work--the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist--almost single-handedly created the Brontë myth. As Elisabeth Jay discusses in her introduction to this new edition, the Life weaves facts, dates, characters and anecdotes with considerable art, Gaskell's "Charlotte was an imaginative creation and, as such, took on a life of it's own". The present text follows the controversial first edition throughout, while all the variations which appeared in the third edition have been recorded in an appendix.
About the Author
ELIZABETH GASKELL was born in London in 1810. She married a minister, and her literary output was substantial and completely professional. Many of her works are available in Penguin Classics, including NORTH AND SOUTH, SYLVIA'S LOVERS, and WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. She died suddenly in 1865. ELISABETH JAY has taught and lectured at various universities in Great Britain and the USA, and is currently Head of Westminster College, Oxford. Her books include FAITH AND DOUBT IN VICTORIAN BRITAIN.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Description of Keighley and its neighbourhood-Haworth Parsonage and Church-Tablets of the Bronte family Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Description of Keighley and its neighbourhood-Haworth Parsonage and Church-Tablets of the Bronte family Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
At the intersection of time and eternity,
By Extollager (Mayville, ND United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Penguin Classics Life Of Charlotte Bronte (Paperback)
Mrs. Gaskell understood a man's or woman's life to be lived within a social and natural context -- and her deployment of anecdotes and impressions of the North of England in the early pages of this book is captivating. But she also understood us to be souls, present to but distinct from God. Hence, even though in a few instances Gaskell's facts may been correctible (which the editor has done for us in this Penguin Classics edition), she is concerned with truth, and this gives readers the opportunity (rarely offered by modern entertainments) to escape from the trivial.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Biography!,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Life Of Charlotte Bronte (Paperback)
A very nicely written biography by Mrs. Gaskell about the life of her friend Charlotte Bronte, although most of the content was made up of letters written either by or to Charlotte Bronte rather than Mrs. Gaskell's own writings. Still this is a very concise book containing mostly everything that an ordinary reader, or well, a beginner of the Bronte novels, should know about this famous family. Nonetheless at some point of the book, I do find Mrs. Gaskell a bit too subjective, especially when it comes to the depiction of Charlotte's brother Branwell Bronte and his downfall. But consider the fact that this book was written only within one and a half year, with Mrs. Gaskell herself alone traveling all the way from Manchester to Haworth, and then to Brussel, doing all the necessary researches and interviews on her own, I must say that this is just an awesome piece of work!! And just as what Patrick Bronte himself had said about this biography, 'It is every way worthy of what one Great Woman, should have written of Another...it ought to stand, and will stand in the first rank, of Biographies, till the end of time'.One more word though. From a more scholarly point of view, however, I think so far the 'best' biography on the Brontes should be Juliet Barker's 'The Brontes'. If, after reading this biography written by Mrs. Gaskell, you still want to know more about the Brontes, then I will say: go and buy this other book by Juliet Barker and you definitely will never regret it!
4.0 out of 5 stars
SAD BUT BRILLIANT,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics Life Of Charlotte Bronte (Paperback)
Such sad lives were led by the the Bronte's, loneliness, loss, despair, all were experienced and fed into the imaginations on charlotte, emily and anne. This book is a brilliant book by E C Gaskell (who i normally dont really like), it is basically a collection of letters by charlotte and a great narrative, when speaking of the deaths of emily, anne and charlotte, i actually felt tears in my eyes!
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