A Grand Quarrel

Elizabeth Gaskell, Florence Nightingale and the work of mothers

A Grand Quarrel explores a compelling dispute between Elizabeth Gaskell and Florence Nightingale, revealing their opposing views on motherhood and women’s roles. Naomi Stadlen uncovers the roots of their disagreement and examines its lingering relevance for mothers in the modern world.

A Grand Quarrel investigates an extraordinary dispute between two of the most brilliant women of the 19th century: novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale.

Gaskell had four daughters and believed mothers had a vital role throughout their children’s lives. Nightingale was an iconoclast who thought all mothers should put their babies into crèches and go out to work. Only Gaskell recorded their quarrel. But Naomi Stadlen, an historian and psychotherapist specialising in motherhood, has pieced together, from the private writings of both women, the issues at stake.

Her final chapter explores how these issues are relevant, painful and still unresolved for mothers today.

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