Mrs. Gaskell died on the twelfth of November, 1865. Of the novelists who have been considered in this book only three survived her, Mrs. Bray, Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Harriet Martineau, but they added little to prose fiction after that date. During the third quarter of the nineteenth century, however, the number of books written by women continued to increase each year. Julia Kavanagh was the author of several novels, the first of which _The Three Paths_, was published in 1848; all her stories were written with high moral aim and delicacy of feeling. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1850, is probably the most powerful novel ever written to plead the cause of oppressed humanity. Dinah Maria Muloch Craik kept up the interest in the domestic novel; her most popular book, _John Halifax, Gentleman_, has lost none of its charm for young women, even if it does not meet the requirements of a classic. Mrs. Henry Wood is still remembered as the author of the melodramatic _East Lynne_, but her best stories are the _Johnny Ludlow Papers_, which deal with character alone; her popularity is attested by the fact that more than a million copies of her books have been issued. Charlotte Yonge's forgotten novels were classed among the _Church Stories_, because they contain so much piety and devotion. Of a different type was Miss de la Ramée, who wrote under the name of Ouidà; she had fine gifts of word-painting, but a fondness for the questionable in conduct. Miss Braddon, the author of _Lady Audley's Secret_, excelled in complicated plots. Mrs. Oliphant has been a most versatile writer, and followed almost every style of prose fiction; her domestic stories are generally considered her best. Anne Thackeray, better known as Mrs. Ritchie, the daughter of the great novelist, has written several novels, all of which have a delightfully feminine touch. Miss Rhoda Broughton has entertained the reading public by love stories which hold the attention until the marriage takes place. But all these women fade into insignificance beside George Eliot, whose first story, _The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton_, appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1857, and whose last novel, _Daniel Deronda_, was published nearly twenty years later, in 1876.