Authors Posters & Prints, “Gas...-Gay...-”
for the literature, language arts and social studies classrooms, home schoolers and scholars.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
b. 9-29-1810; London, England
d. 11-12-1865

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson, was a novelist and short story writer whose detailed descriptions of Victorian social strata is of interest to social historians. Among her notable works are Wives & Daughters, Cranford, and North and South. Mrs. Gaskell also wrote a biography of Charlotte Brontë.

Elizabeth Gaskell quotes ~
• “There is nothing like wounded affection for giving poignancy to anger.”
• “Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used – not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless.”

• The Elizabeth Gaskell Collection (Wives & Daughters / Cranford / North and South) - DVD

Théophile Gautier
b. 8-30-1811; Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France
d. 10-23-1872; Paris

Théophile Gautier, described as a Romantic provocateur, flamboyant bohemian, precocious novelist, perfect poet, inexhaustible journalist, critic, and man-about-town, was one of the major figures and great characters of French literature.

Gautier also provided the liberetto in his collaboration with choreographer Jean Coralli for the ballet Giselle, particularly for his friend, the ballerina Carlotta Grisi.

Théophile Gautier quotes ~
• “To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.”
• “It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat. It is a philosophical animal... one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly.”
• “There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.”
• “The public, which has been wrong before and is wrong now, can accept only demons and angels on the stage.”
• “Nothing is truly beautiful unless it cannot be used for anything; everything that is useful is ugly because it is the expression of some need, and those of man are ignoble and disgusting, like his poor and infirm nature.”

• Mademoiselle de Maupin

John Gay
b. 6-30-1685; Barnstable, England
d. 12-4-1732

Poet and dramatist John Gay is best remembered for his 1728 The Beggar's Opera which was the basis of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Three Penny Opera.

Inscribed on Gay's tomb in Westminster Abbey is his couplet:
Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, and now I know it.

FYI ~ The actress Kitty Clive was famous for playing the role of Polly.