Elizabeth Stevenson was born in London on 29 September 1810, the daughter of a Unitarian minister. After her mother´s early death, she was raised by an aunt who lived in Knutsford in Cheshire. In 1832, she married William Gaskell, also a Unitarian minister, and they settled in the industrial city of Manchester. Motherhood and the obligations of a minister´s wife kept her busy. However, the death of her only son inspired her to write her first novel, ´Mary Barton´, which was published anonymously in 1848. It