e. It is more than
probable that future generations will turn to her stories for correct
pictures of simple every-day life that must fade in the swift
succession of years. She has been compared to a naturalist who knows
intimately the flora and fauna of his native heath.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in Chelsea, England, September
29th, 1810, the daughter of William Stevenson, a literary man,
who was keeper of the records of the Treasury. She lived with her
aunt at Knutsford in Cheshire, was sent to a private school in
Stratford-on-Avon, and visited London and Edinburgh, where her beauty
was much admired. In 1832 she was married to the Rev. William Gaskell,
minister of a Unitarian chapel in Manchester. Mrs. Gaskell did not
begin to write until she had reached middle age, and then chiefly to
distract her thoughts after the death of their only son in 1844. Her
first book, 'Mary Barton,' published anonymously in 1848, achieved
extraordinary success. This was a "novel with a purpose," for Mrs.
Gaskell believed that the hostility between employers and employed,
which constantly disturbed the manufacturing beehive of Manchester,
was caused by mutual ignorance. She therefore set herself the task of
depicting faithfully the lives of the people around her. It must be
remembered, too, that the social types chosen by her were at that
moment peculiarly interesting to a public weary of the novel of
fashionable high life. The story provoked much public discussion; and
among other critics, the social economist Mr. W. R. Greg, in his
'Essay on Mary Barton,' published in 1849, took the part of the
manufacturer. 'Mary Barton' has been translated into French, German,
and other languages, including Hungarian and Finnish. The story has
for its central theme the gradual degeneration of John Barton, a
workman who has a passionate hatred of the classes above him, and who,
embittered by poverty and the death of his son and wife, joins the
law-breakers of the town, and finally murders Henry Corson, a master
manufacturer. 'North and South,' published in 1855, was written from
the point of view of the masters, an admirable contrast to Barton
being found in Thornton, the hero of this novel.

In 1850, when Dickens was about to establish Household Words, he
invited Mrs. Gaskell to contribute. This magazine contained her story
'Lizzie Leigh' and those immortal pictures of village life known as
'Cranford.' Mrs. Gaskell's other novels are: 'R