This book examines apparently dichotomous aspects of Gaskell’s short stories: her failed fathers and her travel writing. The analysis links these themes by examining the ways in which Gaskell used a complex mix of unstable cultural ideas to demonstrate the fragility of home and family life and to challenge gendered norms.The analysis of Gaskell’s fictional fathers is considered in the context of nineteenth-century debates about the role of fathers within the home. Fathers in Gaskel...

An Ordinary Person's memoir, based in Dublin, Ireland. It is the story of the author as she is subjected ("allegedly") to a constructive dismissal after she made a complaint to her employer, one of the largest law firms in Ireland. She seeks retribution through the Employment Appeals Tribunal and describes the process and tactics used by both legal sides during the hearing.  The author later applies for, and is denied, legal assistance from the Legal Aid Board and ...

This book re-locates Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘smaller stories’ in the literary and cultural context of the nineteenth century. While Gaskell is recognised as one of the major novelists of her time, the short stories that make up a large proportion of her published work have not yet received the critical attention they deserve. This study re-claims them as an indispensable part of her literary output that enables us to better contextualize and assess her achievement holistically as a highly-ski...

By the standards of any age, Frances (Fanny) Trollope was an extraordinary woman who led an extraordinary life. She did not begin writing until she was 53, but in the 24 years between 1832 and 1856 she produced no fewer than 40 books, comprising 150 volumes. Her impulse was to save her family from financial ruin. / The Mother of the novelist Anthony Trollope, she was born at Stapleton near Bristol on 10 March 1779. She lived through tumultuous events: the madness of George III, the Napoleo...

Written at a time of uncertainty about the implications of the English government's curriculum policies, Knowledge and the Future School engages with the debate between the government and large sections of the educational community. It provides a forward-looking framework for head teachers, their staff and those involved in training teachers to use when developing the curriculum of individual schools in the context of a national curriculum.While explaining recent ideas in ...

This interdisciplinary volume explores the fictional portrayal of marriage by women novelists between 1800 and 1900. It investigates the ways in which these novelists used the cultural form of the novel to engage with and contribute to the wider debates of the period around the fundamental cultural and social building block of marriage. The collection provides an important contribution to the emerging scholarly interest in nineteenth-century marriage, gender studies, and domesticity, openi...