Headache in the writings of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)

Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell was a celebrated author of the Victorian era, a friend of both Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë and the latter's first biographer. References to headache in Mrs Gaskell's six major novels, published between 1848 and 1866 as well as some of her shorter fiction, have been collated. These multiple references suggest that Elizabeth Gaskell used headache as a narrative device, possibly based on her own experience of headache and that of female acquaintances, most notably Charlotte Brontë.