Elizabeth Gaskell (aka ‘Mrs Gaskell’), author of such classic Victorian and ‘Condition of England’ novels as North and South and Cranford, died in Holybourne, Hampshire, on 12 November 1865 – she was 55. The Illustrated London News did a feature on ‘The Secret of the Author of Cranford‘. To commemorate the day, here is a newspaper tribute to Mrs Gaskell that was published on 18 November 1865.                           …