Gaskell's first novel,
Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848. The best known of her remaining novels are
Cranford (1853),
North and South (1854), and
Wives and Daughters (1865). She became popular for her writing, especially her ghost stories, aided by Charles Dickens, who published her work in his magazine
Household Words. Her ghost stories are quite distinct, in the "Gothic" vein, from her industrial fiction.
Even though her writing conforms to Victorian conventions (including signing her name "Mrs. Gaskell"), Gaskell usually frames her stories as critiques of contemporary attitudes: her early works focused on factory work in the Midlands. She always emphasized the role of women, with complex narratives and dynamic female characters.
In addition to her fiction, Gaskell also wrote the first biography of Charlotte Brontë, which played a significant role in developing her fellow writer's reputation.
Themes
Unitarianism urges comprehension and tolerance toward all religions and, even though Gaskell tried to keep her own beliefs hidden, she felt strongly about these values, which permeated her works...as in
North and South, where "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm".
Dialect usage
Gaskell's style is notable for putting local dialect words into the voice of middle-class characters and of the narrator. For example, in
North and South Margaret Hale suggests
redding up (tidying) the Bouchers' house and even offers jokingly to teach her mother words such as
knobstick (strike-breaker). Her husband collected Lancashire dialect, and Gaskell defended her use of dialect as expressing otherwise inexpressible concepts in an 1854 letter to Walter Savage Landor:
:'...you will remember the country people's use of the word "unked". I can't find any other word to express the exact feeling of strange unusual desolate discomfort, and I sometimes "potter" and "mither" people by using it.'
She used the dialect word "nesh" (soft), which goes back to Old English, in
Mary Barton:
"Sit you down here: the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold."
and later in 'The Manchester Marriage' [1858]:
"Now, I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl."
"At Mrs Wilson's death, Norah came back to them, as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin; into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father; who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day."