Mrs Gaskell's short stories and sketches in relation to the periodicals where they first appeared

Abstract

This study sets out to consider what influence the periodicals which published Mrs Gaskell's shorter works may have exerted on her writing. From this a distinct pattern emerged; Mrs Gaskell only contributed to periodicals whose ideals and opinions largely coincided with her own, whose editors and/or proprietors she knew and liked, and usually only in response to a request for work. The short stories are considered particularly in the context of the periodicals in which they appeared, but since they have seldom been critically treated apart from the novels, some critical comment is also included. Chapter 1 introduces the main lines of approach in the thesis, explains its purpose, and discusses briefly past critical work on the short stories and sketches. Chapters 2-5 examine Mrs Gaskell's relationships with the periodicals and their editors in detail. Chapter 6 draws conclusions from the study, and suggests changes in Mrs Gaskell's attitude to periodical writing. The Appendix gives a chronological list of Mrs Gaskell's published works, which illustrates the distribution of her work between various periodicals at different times.