We’re thrilled that Elizabeth Gaskell’s House has joined forces with the Brontë Parsonage Museum to deliver a series of three events that explore the relationship between the the two friends.

Fact, Fiction and Mythmaking in Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë – a panel discussion with Libby Tempest, Dr Lucy Hanks and Ann Dinsdale

The finale of a short season of events exploring Elizabeth Gaskell’s ground-breaking biography of her friend and fellow writer Charlotte Brontë. ‘The Life‘ was (and still is) hugely popular but also hugely controversial – but it remains the foundation upon which all other biographies of Charlotte Brontë must, to some degree, rest. How much responsibility should it take for creating the myths that surround Charlotte Brontë? How much do myth and reality meet in the book?

Libby Tempest is Chair of the Gaskell Society, a lifelong librarian and a volunteer & tour guide at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. She co-ordinates the Gaskell Reading Group at The Portico Library in Manchester.

Dr Lucy Hanks of the University of Manchester researches how mid-Victorian women writers revised their works for publication and how this influenced the development of their texts.

Ann Dinsdale is Principal Curator at the Brontë Society, and has worked at the Brontë Parsonage Museum for more than thirty years. Her books include The Brontës at Haworth (2006) and At Home with the Brontës (2013).

There are two more events in the series:

The Life of Charlotte Brontë – an introduction. An online talk by Sue Newby from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, 28 July 2021

Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell – A Friendship. An online talk by the Gaskell Society Chair, Libby Tempest, 11 August 2021