Building on theories of space and place, this collection examines the global reach of Elizabeth Gaskell's influence and places her work within the narrative of British letters and narrative identity. In keeping with the theme of progress and change, the essays follow parallel narratives that acknowledge both the angst and nostalgia produced by industrial progress and the excitement and awe occasioned by the potential of the empire.

Part 1 Home Geographies: Gaskell on the waterfront: leisure, labor, and maritime space in the mid-19th century. The humanizing transformations of the space of the home in Gaskell's Cranford. 'You might pioneer a little home': hybrid spaces, identities, and homes in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Grave matters: gothic places and kinetic spaces in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton. Part 2 Mobility and Boundaries: Unimagined community and disease in Ruth. Temporally out of sync: migration as fiction and philanthropy in Gaskell's life and work. Moving between North and South: cultural signs and the progress of modernity in Elizabeth Gaskell's novel. In search of shared time: national imaginings in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Part 3 Literary and Imagined Spaces: Catching the post: Elizabeth Gaskell as traveler and letter-writer. Gaskell the ethnographer: the case of 'modern Greek songs'. Reading 'an every-day story' through bifocals: seriality and the limits of realism in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. Gaskell's 'rooted' prose realism. Part 4 Cultural Performance and Visual Spaces: Applied meteorology: scientific accuracy and imaginative writing in Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Cousin Phillis' and Wives and Daughters. Women's voices in the Pre-Raphaelite space of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels. 'Look back at me': the material re-performance of the Victorian in North and South (2004).