'How long is it since you were a beauty?' Life in Manchester - Libbie Marsh's Three Eras, 1847 Life in Manchester – Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras was one of Elizabeth Gaskell’s earliest works and was published under the pen-name ‘Cotton Mather Mills, Esq.’ This very short story looks at motherhood, loss and marriage through the reality of working-class life in Manchester – a precursor to later novels like Mary Barton and North and South. What's Libbie Marsh's First
