‘Domestic visiting as a means of social knowledge and reconciliation in Gaskell’s fiction A talk by Professor Martin Hewitt from Anglia Ruskin University  Martin will draw on Gaskell’s novels and short stories, especially Mary Barton, North and South and her Manchester short stories, to explore the way Gaskell advocated and exemplified what he calls the ‘visiting mode’ as way of knowing the nineteenth century city. His talk will be based on a chapter of his short monograph, provisionally entitled Seeing Space and Place in the Nineteenth…

Out in Public with Gaskell's Women A talk by Dr Flore Janssen Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels form perfect illustrations of the mid-nineteenth-century debates around women in the public sphere. Crossing class boundaries and addressing the world of work, novels like Mary Barton, Ruth, and North and South show women whose work and personal commitments require them to assert their presence in the public sphere, both literally, walking alone in busy streets, and figuratively, in their engagement with matters of law and business. This talk addresses…

Connectedness in Cranford A talk by Annick Pommier Elizabeth Gaskell led a highly connected life. She built a vast and varied social network over a relatively short period of time and the thousand or so letters that she wrote give us a glimpse of a woman for whom forging and maintaining connections was essential. Her need to connect was not confined to her personality and social life and extends to her works. In her presentation, Annick will explore some of the…

Was it quite impossible but that your Ruth should die?: Elizabeth Gaskell’s self-sacrificial heroine and the Life of Charlotte Brontë  A talk by Dr Angharad Eyre How did Elizabeth Gaskell manage to present the controversial Charlotte Brontë as a popular Victorian heroine? This was no easy task, especially given Gaskell’s own disapproval of Brontë’s novels. Nevertheless, Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë secured Brontë’s place in respectable Victorian culture for the rest of the century. This paper explores the various religious literary traditions…