Private Voices: The Diaries of Elizabeth Gaskell and Sophia Holland [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (Author), Sophia Holland (Author), John Chapple (Editor), Anita Wilson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 1996

These two diaries, by the nineteenth-century novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and her cousin Sophia Holland, provide us with uniquely personal and revealing accounts of Victorian womanhood and motherhood. This is the first critical edition of the Gaskell diary and the first ever publication of the Holland diary. The Gaskells were among the first generation of parents to experience the benefits and burdens of an abundance of child-care literature. Both Elizaeth and Sophia reveal themselves here as anxious to be seen as conscientious and well-informed mothers, but as confused as contemporary parents by the conflicting advice to be found within the pages of the so-called 'experts'. As a piece of social history, these diaries documen the challenges, dilemmas and rewards of Victorian parenthood. As a pieceof literature, there is no doubt that, in cultivating the powers of observation to be found in her diary, Elizabeth was laying the foundation for the wider social vision to be found in her novels. Both works have been carefully edited and annotated from their original manuscripts by J A V Chapple and are accompanied by an illuminating introduction by Anita Wilson.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

J A V Chapple is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Hull.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press (September 25, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853310700
• ISBN-13: 978-1853310706
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,143,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)