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