Next to Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot the most distinguished woman novelist of the era is =Mrs Gaskell (1810-1865)=, who, as Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister of Manchester. Mrs Gaskell's first literary success was "Mary Barton," the story of a Manchester factory girl. "Ruth," "North and South," and "Sylvia's Lovers" were equally successful, but the two books which are certain to secure immortality to their author are "Cranford" (1853), and "The Life of Charlotte Brontë" (1857). "Cranford" is an idyll of village life which is sure to charm many generations of readers, and not a few artists have delighted to illustrate its quaint and fascinating character studies. "Cranford" has been identified with Knutsford in Cheshire. Mrs Gaskell's biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë has probably had a larger sale than any other biography in our literature. Many causes contributed to this--the popularity of the Brontë novels, the exceptionally romantic and pathetic life of their authors, Mrs Gaskell's own fame as a writer of fiction, and the literary skill with which she treated the material at her command. Other women writers who have had a large measure of fame, and are now well-nigh forgotten, are Mrs Marsh (1791-1874), who wrote "The Admiral's Daughter" and "The Deformed," Mrs Crowe (1800-1876), who wrote "Susan Hopley" and "The Night Side of Nature," Mrs Archer Clive (1801-1873), who wrote "Paul Ferroll," Lady Georgiana Fullerton (1812-1885), the author of "Ann Sherwood," Mrs Stretton (1812-1878), who wrote "The Valley of a Hundred Fires." All these are now little more than names to us, but not so =Anne Manning (1800-1879)=, whose "Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell" will long continue to be read. It is an effective presentation of Milton and his first wife. =Mrs Norton (1808-1877)=, "the Byron of poetesses," as Lockhart described her, wrote several novels, "Stuart of Dunleath" and "Lost and Saved" being perhaps the best known in their time, but she lives now mainly in George Meredith's "Diana of the Crossways." =Dinah Mulock (1826-1887)= (Mrs Craik) may still be ranked among our most popular novelists, although her best and most successful book, "John Halifax, Gentleman," was published in 1857. The memory of =Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877)=, although her "Madeleine" was enthusiastically greeted on its appearance, has all but faded away. Miss Kavanagh's "Woman in France in the 18th Century," "English Women of Letters," and "French Women of Letters," were handsomely got-up books, and are still to be found in many old-fashioned libraries.