Gaskell House Blogs

Quiz – How Well Do You Know Elizabeth Gaskell’s House? Part 4

This six-part quiz will test your knowledge of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. We will be posting four questions a week for six weeks, each week based on a different room or area of the House.

The answers can all be found within our blogs and social media posts.

You can also find some of the answers in the two blogs 10 things you might not know about Elizabeth Gaskell’s House and Six Famous Visitors to 84 Plymouth Grove. It’s purely for fun. We won’t be scoring you – the answers are at the bottom of the page, below the picture.

Part 4 The Dining Room & Writing

1. We have a copy of the manuscript of Wives and Daughters on the writing table in the Dining Room. It was almost complete when Elizabeth died suddenly. Where did she die?
   
   
2. Wives and Daughters was being written in serial form for which publication?
   
   
3. Which seaside town did Elizabeth visit in November 1859 to research her next novel Sylvia’s Lovers?
   
   
4. We have copies of letters from two of the famous visitors to 84 Plymouth Grove on the writing table in the Dining Room. Which one said this of Elizabeth Gaskell? “If I were Mr G Oh heavens how I would beat her!”

Answers

1. Elizabeth died at The Lawn, Holybourne (near Alton) Hampshire. She bought the house to live in when William retired and kept it secret from him. He only found out after she died! Read more about the story of The Lawn
   
   
2. Wives and Daughters was being written in serial form for The Cornhill Magazine. After Elizabeth died suddenly, in November 1865, Wives and Daughters was finished by the editor Frederick Greenwood. Read more about the house in Hampshire
   
   
3. Elizabeth visited Whitby with Meta, and Julia who needed to recover from an illness.  Elizabeth transformed Whitby into Monkshaven in the novel: “The narrow harbour at the mouth of the river was crowded with small vessels of all descriptions, making an intricate forest of masts”. Read more about the visit to Whitby
   
   
4. Charles Dickens said he would beat her. While Elizabeth was writing North and South in instalments for Household Words in 1855 the relationship between her and Dickens had become extremely fraught and they had frequent disagreements by letter.  Read more about Charles Dickens visiting