Celebrating the life and work of Elizabeth Gaskell
As part of the Heritage Open Days in 2019, the doors will be open at Cairo Street Unitarian Chapel, Warrington’s oldest Dissenting Chapel. Founded on the same site in 1662, when led by the Revd Samuel Yates Rector of St … Continued
‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ can be found in collections of Gothic stories, ghost stories and tales of the macabre, something which might seem odd for a woman who was the wife of a Unitarian minister and, as a Unitarian, a … Continued
How would you then define a hero? ‘The Sexton’s Hero’, was published in William and Mary Howitt’s Journal during September 1847, the year before Gaskell ‘s first, and much-loved, novel Mary Barton appeared in print. Suzanne Lewis in her introduction … Continued
In 1845 while scarlet fever was rife in Manchester, Elizabeth Gaskell took her young family, comprising then of three girls and a baby boy, William, out to North Wales to avoid the infection. Sadly, Marianne contracted the fever and then … Continued
The Gaskell Society recently received a question via Twitter concerning connections between Molly Gibson (Wives and Daughters) and Eleanor Omerod, an entomologist. Omerod was born in Gloucestershire in 1828, moving to Torquay, then Isleworth and finally St Albans where she … Continued
It’s hard to imagine a more nerve-wracking scenario than Newish Chairwoman organising and chairing her first conference for such a well-respected literary society as the Gaskell Society. NOT helped by a history of well-organised, enjoyable, academically stimulating previous conferences stretching … Continued
We all think of Elizabeth Gaskell as a brilliantly entertaining storyteller, whom Dickens addressed as ‘my dear Scheherazade’. But how many of us know her works of non-fiction? One interesting – and I might even dare to say obscure – … Continued
Elizabeth Gaskell, the wife of a Unitarian minister of religion in Manchester, shared her husband’s interest in literature: they published some jointly written verses in 1837. Elizabeth became a best-selling novelist almost by chance. Grieved by the death of her baby … Continued
On 31st May 2019, the Gaskell Society held a joint celebration at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in Manchester. Members of the Gaskell Society committee joined with past and present editors of the Gaskell Journal to launch the long-awaited Index of the first thirty … Continued
In 2010, on the bicentenary of her birth, Elizabeth Gaskell was finally given the recognition she deserves, as a window panel in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, was dedicated to her memory. After the service, conducted by The Very Reverend … Continued