"The Last Generation in England" is a non-fiction article by

Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...

, published in the American '' Sartain's Union Magazine'' in July 1849, relating memories of a small country town in the generation prior to her own. As such, it is seen as the real-life background for her 1853 novel '' Cranford''. Recognising she was living through a time of great and rapid change, Gaskell was inspired to write the article by reading that the author

Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...

had himself once considered composing a history of English domestic life.

External links

"The Last Generation in England"
first page * Non-fiction works by Elizabeth Gaskell 1849 documents {{UK-lit-stub