The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To ELIZABETH GASKELL,1 [1853-4]

Envelope only.
Text from facsimile in Bonhams online catalogue, May 2020.
Address: Mrs Gaskell | Plymouth Grove | Manchester
Date: 12-barred numeral cancellation (no. 16) on envelope issued March 1847; penny red imperforate stamp on envelope replaced by perforated version Feb 1854. Gaskells moved to 42 Plymouth Grove in 1850. Signature confirms 1853-4.

• 1. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson (1810-65; Dictionary of National Biography), novelist and biographer. Her first novel, Mary Barton (1848), led CD to invite her to write for Household Words: “Lizzie Leigh” was the opening contribution in No.1. See Pilgrim Letters 5, p. 539n. For CD's letters to Gaskell in 1853-4 see Pilgrim Letters 7, pp. 27, 62, 76, 151, 235, 272, 278, 299, 320, 355-6, 363, 377-8, 382, 397, 402. During this period CD published North and South and several of Gaskell's "Cranford" stories in Household Words, as well as "Cumberland Sheep-Shearers", "Traits and Stories of The Huguenots", "Morton Hall", "My French Master" "The Squire’s Story", "Modern Greek Songs", and "Company Manners".