ABSTRACT
Esther Alice Chadwick has the distinction of being Elizabeth Gaskell’s first real biographer. Before her book was published in the year of the Gaskell centenary, the most anyone had attempted was a biographical sketch or essay, often repeating the handful of anecdotes or facts that were known about her or permitted by her daughters. Little had changed by 1910, with Meta Gaskell still holding out against further disclosures (Julia had died in 1908), and Chadwick had to manage with minimal help from the dwindling circle of friends and family. The publication of Chadwick’s book occasioned an exchange in the Tetters’ section of the Guardian (both London and Manchester editions) in the course of which Meta expressed her continuing opposition to a biography, and claimed she had advised Mrs Chadwick not to write one. Below Virginia Woolf’s review of the book in The Times Literary Supplement(29 September 1910; see section 22) is a further request: Would you most kindly allow me to correct in your columns a false impression that I have “co-operated” with Mrs Ellis Chadwick in her recent book about my mother, Mrs Gaskell?’ (TLS, p. 349). The book was widely reviewed, and while many applauded her attempt to assemble a ‘Life’ of Gaskell, others felt she had overstressed the novels’ basis in real life experiences, and accused Chadwick of factual inaccuracy. Indeed when the biography was reissued in 1913, she confesses to having made some mistakes in the 1910 edition, and being grateful for the additional information provided by correspondents.
