Given the current Covid-19 outbreak, our committee has taken the decision to cancel or postpone our events until further notice. At time of writing, Elizabeth Gaskell’s House has closed its doors until a planned review in July. All events listed are subject to change or cancellation.
Please stay safe, dear members, and we hope to see you at our events and meetings again before too long.
April 2020
The Gaskell Society AGM 2020 – POSTPONED
Given the current situation, we have decided to postpone our Annual General Meeting. We intend to reschedule it for later in the year. ---------------- A warm welcome to our Annual General Meeting. The AGM is open to Gaskell Society members only, but the talks and lunch are open to members and non-members alike. Timetable 10.00 am: Tea and Coffee 10.30 am: AGM 11.30 am: The Daphne Carrick Memorial Lecture: ‘Was it quite impossible but that your Ruth should die?’ Elizabeth Gaskell’s self-sacrificial heroine and…
Find out more »Reading the Nineteenth Century 4 – The Unclassed – POSTPONED
Please note that this event has been postponed, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We hope to reschedule the sessions as soon as it's safe and we're able to do so. ---------- A new, five-part evening reading course at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House - enter the world of fallen women in the Victorian novel. When a women’s virtue is compromised, what choices lie open to her? Whose fault is it that she falls in the first place? And what will happen to…
Find out more »Lunchtime Talk: Forgotten Female Novelists – POSTPONED
Please note that this event has been postponed, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We hope to reschedule the sessions as soon as it's safe and we're able to do so. ---------- Discover the work of women authors whose fiction has been forgotten. Join our Chair, the wonderfully engaging Libby Tempest, as she uncovers the work of these unsung writers. Lunch-time talks and readings are included in usual House entry No booking required, but please make sure you arrive in good…
Find out more »Knutsford Meeting – April 2020 – CANCELLED
In April, we'll be discussing the short story, The Squire's Story. Our monthly meetings are held on the last Wednesday of each month, between October and April (except December). An excellent buffet lunch is served at 12.30pm followed by a talk and discussion, led by Dr Diane Duffy, 2-3pm. There will also be a chance to visit the Gaskell Exhibition Room, upstairs in the Chapel Hall building. Everyone is most welcome - £10 members, £11 non-members if you'd like lunch.…
Find out more »May 2020
London & South East Gaskell Society Meeting – POSTPONED
Please note that this event has been postponed, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We hope to reschedule the sessions as soon as it's safe and we're able to do so. ---------- Eco-Gothic and Mary Barton A talk by Dr Lindsey Stewart This talk will consider how Mary Barton presents emotional and psychological distress and argue that, in this novel, Gaskell uses eco-gothic tropes to frame the environment as pathological. Lindsey is a member of our branch and a Visiting Fellow in the…
Find out more »Peak District Tour, with Elizabeth Gaskell & Florence Nightingale connections – CANCELLED
As part of the tour, we are promised a privileged tour of Lea Hurst, where Florence Nightingale grew up and where Elizabeth Gaskell wrote part of the novel North and South in October 1854. The novel was being serialised in Dickens’s journal Household Words. Lea Hurst was the summer home of William Nightingale and his family. Several letters, describing Gaskell’s precise location in the house and the visits she made whilst staying there, were also written, including those to Marianne,…
Find out more »Reading the Nineteenth Century 5 – Esther Waters – POSTPONED
Please note that this event has been postponed, due to the Covid-19 outbreak. We hope to reschedule the sessions as soon as it's safe and we're able to do so. ---------- A new, five-part evening reading course at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House - enter the world of fallen women in the Victorian novel. When a women’s virtue is compromised, what choices lie open to her? Whose fault is it that she falls in the first place? And what will happen to…
Find out more »August 2020
August Second-hand Book Sale
On the second Sunday of each month, Elizabeth Gaskell's House hosts a fantastic second-hand book sale, downstairs in the Servants Hall. All proceeds go towards supporting operations and events in the House. The tearoom always has a fine selection of new and second-hand books for sale, but this is the big one! It's a chance to browse a much wider selection – two rooms filled with second-hand books, donated by book-lovers! The selection includes a variety of fiction, art, gardening,…
Find out more »September 2020
September Second-hand Book Sale
On the second Sunday of each month, Elizabeth Gaskell's House hosts a fantastic second-hand book sale, downstairs in the Servants Hall. All proceeds go towards supporting operations and events in the House. The tearoom always has a fine selection of new and second-hand books for sale, but this is the big one! It's a chance to browse a much wider selection – two rooms filled with second-hand books, donated by book-lovers! The selection includes a variety of fiction, art, gardening,…
Find out more »July 2021
The Gaskell Society Conference 2021
The theme for our 2021 conference is 'Elizabeth Gaskell and her Contemporaries'. We'll be exploring the lives, works and importance of a number of nineteenth-century women writers. The event will take place at the Celtic Royal Hotel, Caernarfon, North Wales. More details, including a full timetable and line-up of speakers, will be published here. This really is a very friendly and welcoming conference, so please - save those dates!
Find out more »As you’ll appreciate, arrangements can change, so please be sure to check details before you leave home.