Wives and Daughters

From Amy M. King's Introduction toWives and Daughters The novelist Henry James, in his review ofWives and Daughters(1866) written in the wake of Elizabeth Gaskell's death, praises Gaskell's "genius" and pronounces that the novel is "one of the very best novels of its kind" ("Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell," pp. 10191020; see "For Further Reading"). In the review, quoted above, James mingles praise with warnings to his imaginary readers that they might at first find the book dull, but that which was dull would soon enough prove to be the foundation of a strong investment ineven love forthe novel's heroine. James's mingled but nevertheless high praise seems to have emerged from his belief that although Gaskell's novels displayed "a minimum of head," describing her writing style this way was a compliment to Gaskell's "personal character," rather than an indictment of her "intellect." Whether one chooses on Gaskell's behalf to be affronted or flattered by James's review is less important, I would suggest, than parsing the review to better understand how Victorian novels known to be written by women were received by their readers. One thing we learn from James's review is that the register for praise (and not just criticism) is related to gender. Even though James thinks highly ofWives and Daughters, he cannot forget that it is written by a woman, and would likely not think to trywhich may not so much detract from his reading of the novel asconditionhis reading of the novel. And so with James's emphasis on Gaskell's facility with "domestic facts," her adeptness with "minutiae," and her evocation of a reader's feelings rather than the promotion of understanding, each skill that is singled out is in some sense a stereotype of women's interests and talents. The praise, that is, emphasizes the author's femininity. James mentions the "gentle skill" Gaskell uses to slowly involve the reader "in the tissue of the story," her "lightness of touch," and the "delicacy of the handwork" she uses to perfect the "net" that ultimately entangles the reader in the novel. James's review may emphasize that the author is female, but, unlike our own contemporary obsession with the target demographics for various art forms"chick-lit" and "chick-flicks," to name two current monikersit does not assume or even believe that the audience of the novel is necessarily female. If anything, James projects a male reader, one who will feel what he calls an "almost fraternal relation" to the heroine Molly Gibson. Elizabeth Gaskell was, as Henry James allows, a "lady-novelist," but one who excites every "reader's very warmest admiration." Our contemporary concern for deemphasizing an author's gender when evaluating art, while often simultaneously emphasizing who is meant to consume it, was not shared by the mid-Victorians. James's review reflects this, as does the considerable attention Gaskell gave to what we now call the "packaging" of her first novel. Like her good friend Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell had sought a male pseudonym to use for her first novel,Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life(1848), even though her publisher had suggested that the novel would be more popular if it was known to be the work of "a lady" (Uglow,ElGaskell, Elizabeth is the author of 'Wives and Daughters ', published 2005 under ISBN 9781593082574 and ISBN 1593082576.