Inseparable from the high names of Charlotte and Emily Bronte is the name of Elizabeth Gaskell, who devoted to their service all the cunning and all the patience of her sweet and noble genius.' Lionel Johnson. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (nee Stevenson), 1810 - 65, was born in Chelsea and brought up by her aunt at Knutsford, Cheshire, the original of Cranford and Hollingford. In 1832 she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister of Manchester, with whom her life was one of calm and perfect harmony. Her Life of Charlotte Bronte, first published in two volumes in 1857, by its vivid presentation of the sad and indeed tragic story of the Bronte sisters greatly widened the interest in their writings it remains today one of the masterpieces of English biography.