I’m afraid that once again I have to announce a late change of speaker for this meeting. Lucy Hanks, who was due to speak to us about William Gaskell’s revisions on The Life of Charlotte Brontë, has had to withdraw due to a family illness, although we hope that she will be able to deliver her talk in our next programme.

Instead we have been fortunate enough to secure another speaker whom we are sure you will find an excellent replacement for Lucy.  He is Edwin Marr, a Ph. D. student from Anglia Ruskin University The title of his talk is:

’’The Obnoxious Railroad”: Railway Time and Space in the Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

Edwin will look at Gaskell’s representations of the railway in several of her novels, novellas and letters, exploring how she uses the railway to symbolise increasing societal regulation, distinctions between rural past and industrialised future, and issues of social class and social mobility. 

Edwin completed both his BA and MA at Anglia Ruskin University, with an undergraduate project on Universal Salvation in the works of Anne Brontë and a post-graduate dissertation on grief and death in the works of Branwell Brontë. His research is particularly concerned with the Brontës, Dickens, Gaskell, Trollope and Eliot, and he focuses on the impact of industrialisation, space and travel across the nineteenth-century.

As we know, Gaskell made enthusiastic use of the railways in her travels, and railway journeys and railway construction play a significant role in a number of her works, so this meeting should offer us plenty of material for thought and discussion.Do come along for Edwin’s talk

Everyone is welcome any time after 12.45pm. Please bring a packed lunch. Talks begin at 2pm and usually last about an hour. Each talk is followed by questions, and then tea is served.
At each meeting there is a bring-and-buy book stall in aid of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in Manchester. (elizabethgaskellhouse.co.uk)
Please bring any books that you wish to rehome and which will be of interest to other members, marked with an appropriate price. If, at the end of the meeting, your books have not been sold, we will ask you to take them away with you again.

We ask for a contribution of £5.00 to cover speakers’ expenses, a donation to the school and tea.
If you have any queries, please contact Jenny Keaveney

07791 309784

All meetings are held at Francis Holland School for Girls, 39 Graham Terrace London SW1W 8JF

The school is only a three-minute walk from Sloane Square tube station, which is on the District and Circle line. This central location means that the meeting is convenient for anyone interested  in Elizabeth Gaskell’s writing. Come along – you will be sure of a friendly welcome