Elizabeth Gaskell

Winner of the Portico Prize
Shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year

High-spirited, witty and passionate, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote some of the most enduring novels of the Victorian age, including "Mary Barton," "North and South," and "Wives and Daughters."

This biography traces Elizabeth's youth in rural Knutsford, her married years in the tension-ridden city of Manchester, and her wide network of friends in London, Europe, and America.

Standing as a figure caught up in the religious and political radicalism of nineteenth-century Britain, the book looks at how Elizabeth observed, from her Manchester home, the brutal but transforming impact of industry. She enjoyed a social and family life, but was distracted by her need to write down the truth of what she saw.

In this widely acclaimed biography, Elizabeth Gaskell emerges as an artist of unrecognized complexity, shrewdly observing the political, religious, and feminist arguments of nineteenth-century Britain, with enjoyment, passion, and wit.

Jenny Uglow is the bestselling author of "Nature's Engraver," which won the National Arts Writers Award, and "A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration," which was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize. Her most recent books include "Nature's Engraver," the story of Thomas Bewick, and "In These Times," a history of the home front during the Napoleonic Wars.