Usually I post one of my Brontë stories.
But today I'm posting an essay on Brontë history
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| Mrs. Gaskell |
by Anne Lloyd
I was going through some books to give away and ran across my copy of Mrs. Gaskell's letters. A hefty tome indeed. I'm a big fan of Victorian writing naturally and so I opened to a page to read a bit before placing the letters in the bag.
I happened to open the book upon a letter written on May 31 1855, about two months Charlotte's passing. In this letter, Mrs. G asked George Smith, Charlotte’s publisher, if he has a copy of Richmond's portrait of Charlotte and if she may have an engraved copy for herself. This seems natural enough for a grieving friend.
However, I was amazed by the very next passage in her letter to Smith, where Mrs. G swiftly went from a remembrance of a friend, to proposing a biography of Charlotte's life.
Mrs. G hardly had time to wipe away the tears for her friend and she's proposing an exploitative opportunity with Charlotte’s publisher.
But even publisher Smith drew back at the proposal, saying it was much too soon.
In fact, she had already been busy about the project since Charlotte's death. But the origins of the biography go even further back to years earlier.
Well before Mrs. Gaskell met Charlotte Brontë ; Gaskell couldn't help writing about CB's life. She heard the stories about the wild moor and the tragic events making the social rounds and Mrs Gaskell, the novelist, would craft passages in letters to friends, that were similar to pages in the later biography. She had to meet the this literary phenomenon.
Mrs. G pressed Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth to arrange a meeting with the now very famous "Currer Bell." He obliged and it was during a visit to Kay-Shuttleworth 's estate that the two women met and became friends.
What gave Mrs. G the extra charge to advocate for a biography right after CB's death came from John Greenwood. He lived in Haworth and among other things, sold stationary. He knew Charlotte; indeed, he supplied the sisters with their writing paper.
Mrs. G had meet Greenwood during a visit to the village. Charlotte had introduced them.
This acquaintance emboldened Greenwood to write to Gaskell directly, less than a week after Charlotte's death. Indeed, it was John Greenwood who told Elizabeth Gaskell about Charlotte's passing in a letter written on May 5, 1855.
Greenwood also wrote to Mrs. Gaskell letters full of malicious gossip about Patrick Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls. He is the source of the stories about Haworth's mad Irish pastor cutting up his wife's dress and starving his children.
Mrs. G enthusiastically wrote back to Greenwood:
Oh, you bet.
Mr. Greenwood thus became Gaskell's Haworth connection and gossip source. John Greenwood was hardly a disinterested bystander. He had a nice Brontë souvenir business that Arthur disapproved of and wish to end.
In short, Greenwood had a grudge and Mrs. G had a vision. Together they created the biography and its scandalous first edition stories about Patrick.
Armed with Greenwood's tales, Mrs. G wrote an anonymous magazine article called
" A few notes about Jane Eyre", that appeared in the June 1855 edition of Sharp's Magazine.
To appear in June, the article had to be written very soon after Gaskell heard from Greenwood
With the stories in print, Gaskell then had Ellen Nussey write to Rev. Brontë a letter telling him about the article and saying to him there must be an answer to these "malicious misrepresentations!"
Helpfully in her letter, Ellen also offered a solution to this outrage. Only Mrs. Gaskell could effectively counter these slanders! Would Rev. Brontë ask her to undertake the task?
In short: Mrs. G anonymously put into print the Greenwood gossip. She then had Ellen Nussey write to the Parsonage, telling Rev. Brontë and Arthur about the publication and strongly advocating Mrs. G to be commissioned to refute the stories that Mrs. G herself had written.
How do I know Mrs. Gaskell wrote that anonymous article? Because the author of the article used Greenwood's tales and these stories appeared again two years later in the official biography, almost word for word.
Also, I don't believe Ellen found the article and came up with the Mrs. G idea on her own. Ellen would hardly offer Gaskell as an answer to Patrick if she did not have Gaskell's commission to get , not only Rev. Brontë's permission, but also to make it seem to all the world that a biography was his idea!
The original Parsonage response to Ellen's letter about the article was: who cares what an obscure magazine article says and an answer would only spread the stories further.
However, Patrick always like to see what the press was saying about his daughter and so a copy was obtained which Arthur read to him.
Patrick's first reaction to these fantastic tales was peals of laughter. Arthur wrote to Ellen that he had not seen his father-in-law that merry for many months.
But the poison had been drunk and perhaps with Ellen's further urging, Patrick changed his mind.
Perhaps that is why the stories were mostly about how ghastly Patrick Brontë had treated his wife and children throughout their lives and thus were used as a particular goad in Mrs. G's aim to get that permission\ request from him.
Patrick was a man very sensitive to his reputation as an immigrant Irishman in England and his standing as a gentleman and a churchman... since he worked very hard to reach that station.
But I believe, eventually the idea of his most famous and last child not disappearing altogether, was also a reason he agreed to the book as well.
So, as he was instructed by Ellen, Patrick wrote Mrs. Gaskell to formally ask her to undertake his daughter's biography.
Mrs. Gaskell immediately sent Patrick's letter to George Smith, saying to him, see here the solemn task, nay, duty! (which she had arranged) that was somehow laid upon her.
So Patrick Brontë was thus manipulated to ask the author of the awful stories to write a push-back to the stories she herself had authored.
When Mrs. G told people she was" frightened " of Arthur. That's was her guilty conscience speaking. It's nice to know she had one.
What could the scene have been like two years later when the published biography was opened at the Parsonage by Rev. Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls, only to find, word for word the very same stories that book was meant to refute?
Whatever the sensation at the Parsonage, after seeing they were cruelly tricked, forever afterwards Patrick always defended Mrs. G in public. He told others he wanted no quarrel with her and even said, "Well, novelists will have their little stories."
Patrick simply asked Mrs. Gaskell to remove the slanders in later editions. This she did, but the damage was done.
However, others in her book came after Mrs. Gaskell for the treatment they received. The former Mrs. Robinson, now Lady Scott, had her lawyers force Mrs. Gaskell to publicly recant the stories written about her ; a heaping plate of crow indeed.
But it was Mrs. Gaskell's husband and their lawyers who dined upon the meal.
She ran off to Italy.
Many in Haworth itself were angry over the village's portrait drawn in Mrs. G’s book and one of the Garr sisters, nursemaids to the Brontë children, had complaints.
But as I say, Patrick did not join the post-publication fray.
He stood by Mrs. G, even though he was the most ill-used. Mrs. Gaskell noted his generosity years later and called Patrick Brontë, "a real brick" ( a good sport) about it all. Indeed.
The only major event of Charlotte's life which Mrs. G did not inflame for sensation was Belgium. That was given special treatment. Gaskell traveled there, met Professor and Madame Heger and was shown CB's letters to Monsieur to read.
She was so shocked by their contents that she glossed over that time period and the later events in her book. Mrs. Gaskell trembled at the thought the letters might be published; destroying the image of Charlotte she had carefully created.
But Gaskell felt the Hegers were too honorable to do so. She was correct in that assumption. The letters were published in 1913 after the letters left the family's hands.
Ellen Nussey was ready and able to aid Mrs. G in her aim with vim and vigor.
Whenever Mrs. G was momentarily refused by Arthur in one of the book's needs, Ellen wisely advised Gaskell; don't ask the husband, ask the father. Work on Patrick, whom Arthur could not refuse and Mrs. G would get her way. The technique worked perfectly.
However, Ellen was not rewarded for her help once her usefulness was over. Mrs. G had long promised Ellen she would be able to read though the manuscript before it would be sent to the publishers and strike out or changed what she wished.
As the publishing date drew near, Ellen sent a number of inquiries about when that opportunity would be given? What Ellen was given was a half hour to glance though the manuscript. With that, Lily felt her promise was more than fulfilled.
Elizabeth Gaskell was not a bad person. But she could be a remarkably high handed and self-serving one, such as in the history I'm relating.
Ellen was of course "hurt." But I have little sympathy for her in this case.
So as the writing went along, Mrs. G got just about everything she wanted for her book in the way of letters and information by appealing to Patrick. Everything that is, but the Brontë copyright.
Arthur also had believed his wife's letters would be used only for background information, not published by the dozens.
But of course, they lied to him about that and when the book was ready to go to the printer, Arthur was shocked to find many of Charlotte's letters were actually included.
Later he lamented he did not insist on reading the manuscript before publication. While Arthur and Patrick had nothing to do with the book's contents, they were subjected to the local complaints about it.
Arthur said "Mrs Gaskell seemed not to realize she writing about living persons!"
Mrs. G may have, but I don't believe that mattered to her too much. It was the story telling that mattered.
Regardless of all this, again, Arthur could not disappoint Patrick and so as the letters' copyright holder, he gave permission for the biography to be sent to press....and on to glory.
Mrs. Gaskell told publisher Smith that after Charlotte's wedding, Charlotte had often asked her to come to Haworth. But again, Mrs. G told Smith she was too "afraid" of Arthur to even answer.
What Mrs. G did not tell Smith, was that during those post wedding months, when Charlotte invited her, Mrs. Gaskell was totally taken up and enamored with a new, famous, individual, Florence Nightingale.
Mrs. G visited with Miss Nightingale three times during those months when Charlotte's invitations went unanswered.
Gaskell had moved on.
But then CBN died unexpectedly ; and Greenwood sent the news with juicy gossip and just like that , Charlotte was back in Mrs. Gaskell's life front and center.
Now you know the story.
However I must end with a further observation. Throughout her life, beginning at Miss Wooler's school when a girl, Charlotte told her life story to anyone of intelligence who cared to listen.
William S. Williams, the Smith and Elder's reader, who discovered CB, particularly comes to mind. Her letters to him weave a detailed story of her life.
This tendency of Charlotte's was how Lily heard about the moor and the sisters via London friends in the first place. Hearing of them, as I've said, Gaskell became fascinated and very interested in meeting Charlotte: to hear the tales from the source.
Charlotte, like Mrs. Gaskell afterwards, told the stories in livid terms,adding heightened color to the scenes.
In a sense, Lily Gaskell was following Charlotte's own footsteps when
she wrote of Currer Bell's life in the way she did.
They were both novelists to the heart after all.
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