Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born in London in1810. Her mother, Eliza, the niece of the potterJosiah Wedgwood, died when she was a child. Muchof her childhood was spent in Knutsford, Cheshire, atown she would later immortalize as Cranford. In1832 she married a Unitarian minister, WilliamGaskell, and they settled in Manchester. Theindustrial surroundings offered her inspiration forher writings and it was here that she wrote bothCranford (1853) and North and South (1855), aswell as the first biography of Charlotte Brontë. Herlast novel, Wives and Daughters, said by many tobe her most mature work, remained unfinished atthe time of her death in 1865.