In her introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell (2007), a collection of essays representing current Gaskell scholarship, Jill L. Matus stresses the author's growing stature in Victorian literary studies and how her innovative, versatile storytelling addressed the rapid changes during her lifetime. It was not always that way;[14] her reputation from her death to the 1950s was dominated by Lord David Cecil's assessment in Early Victorian Novelists (1934) that she was "all woman" and "makes a creditable effort to overcome her natural deficiencies but all in vain".[15]
Contemporary reviews were critical, similar to those of Mary Barton. A scathing, unsigned critique in The Leader accused Gaskell of making errors about Lancashire which a resident of Manchester would not make and said that a woman (or clergymen and women) could not "understand industrial problems", would "know too little about the cotton industry" and had no "right to add to the confusion by writing about it".[3]
After reading the fifth episode, Charlotte Brontë believed that it was only about the church and "the defence of those who in conscience, disagree with it and consider it their duty to leave". However, Brontë acknowledged that her friend "understands the genius of the North".[16] Although Richard Holt acknowledged some interest in the novel in The Critical Review, he complained that its plot is disjointed and the characters change by leaps and bounds "in the manner of kangaroos".[16] George Sand said that the novel could interest a gentleman while being accessible to a young woman.[17]
Gaskell's novels, with the exception of Cranford, gradually slipped into obscurity during the late 19th century; before 1950, she was dismissed as a minor author with "good judgment and feminine sensibilities". Archie Stanton Whitfield wrote that her work was "like a nosegay of violets, honeysuckle, lavender, mignonette and sweet briar" in 1929,[18] and Cecil said that she lacked the "masculinity" necessary to properly deal with social problems.[19] However, the tide began to turn in Gaskell's favour when, in the 1950s and 60s, socialist critics like Kathleen Tillotson, Arnold Kettle and Raymond Williams re-evaluated the description of social and industrial problems in her novels,[20] and—realising that her vision went against the prevailing views of the time—saw it as preparing the way for vocal feminist movements.[21] In the early 21st century, with Gaskell's work "enlisted in contemporary negotiations of nationhood as well as gender and class identities",[22] North and South, one of the first industrial novels describing a conflict between employers and workers, is seen as depicting complex social conflicts and offering more satisfactory solutions through Margaret Hale: spokesperson for the author and Gaskell's most mature creation.[23]
