SOURCE: Hopkins, A. B. “The First Novel.” In Elizabeth Gaskell: Her Life and Work, pp. 67-83. London: John Lehmann, 1952.

In the following excerpt, Hopkins explores the conditions surrounding the composition and publication of Mary Barton.

It is unnecessary to assume at this juncture that had it not been for the loss of her child, Mrs. Gaskell might never have become a writer. There are signs that she was interested in authorship before she turned to it as assuagement of her sorrow. But this personal bereavement and her husband's suggestion may have brought into sharper, more immediate focus yearnings which, owing to the domestic responsibilities of her early married life, she may have felt, in a professional sense, scarcely possible of realization. For although a little over a year later, a fresh source of distraction came in the birth of her last child, Julia Bradford, in September of 1846, from...