The Gaskell Society

The Gaskell Society

Celebrating the life and work of Elizabeth Gaskell

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Letters and Elizabeth Gaskell

Francis Holland School 39 Graham Terrace, London, United Kingdom

Carolyn Lambert is the Gaskell Society’s Letters Recorder, responsible for hunting down and investigating new Gaskell letters. Her talk will cover academic theories of letter-writing; letters in Gaskell’s fiction and the wit and wisdom of Elizabeth Gaskell, according to Carolyn: “one of the best letter writers of the nineteenth-century: gossipy, acerbic and endlessly entertaining” The […]

Manchester Meeting – Rooms with a View

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

Rooms with a View: Soft Furnishings in North and South   This talk will explore what the furniture in North and South tells us about the social world Gaskell inhabits. Dr Clara Dawson reflects on whether furniture provides us with an alternative narrative to the romance plot and the depiction of north and south, and […]

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Online Valentines Talk: Mr Thornton vs Mr Darcy

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In this lively online event we take a closer look at two of literature’s best loved heroes – Mr Thornton from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Sit back and enjoy a Valentine’s treat as we celebrate two delicious literary leading men. Discover how our heroes compare […]

£5

Online Talk: Passion and Propriety – Elizabeth Gaskell’s Fashion

online

Elizabeth Gaskell had a love of fashion, enjoying foreign styles on her travels, and a fan of beautiful shawls and patterns at home. This talk, by Margo Singer, looks at Elizabeth’s conflicting reactions to contemporary fashions in her letters and novels, as she sought to reconcile her desire for conservative dress for her daughters, and […]

£5

Manchester Meeting – Elizabeth Gaskell’s Visit to Chatsworth

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

‘I feel more like Cinderella, than anyone else you can imagine’: Elizabeth Gaskell’s visit to Chatsworth On Saturday 12 September 1857, Elizabeth Gaskell and her daughter Meta were amongst many tourists arriving at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire with their printed admission tickets. Their tour of the house was interrupted by an invitation to stay for […]

£5 – £6

Online Talk: Writing Women

online

Join Dr Diane Duffy for a special look at 19th century women writers’ experiences, starting with Elizabeth Gaskell and reflecting on the lives of giants of literature including Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. How were their experiences different to male writers? What did the reading public think of women? How did […]

£5

Online Talk: Literary Heroines

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A celebration of Mary Barton and the greatest 19th century literary heroines by women writers from Jane Austen to the Brontës. Writers like Elizabeth Gaskell question our views of Victorian women by creating characters who break the rules and challenge convention. Why are we drawn to Mary Barton and so many others? What sets them […]

£5

Domestic Mental Cruelty in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Works

Francis Holland School 39 Graham Terrace, London, United Kingdom

A talk by Kathleen Gentle Kathleen Gentle, a postgraduate researcher at Anglia Ruskin University, examines  the depiction of psychological abuse in familial and spousal relationships and focusing on Sylvia’s Lovers and the short stories “Morton Hall” and “The Grey Woman”. We are very grateful to Kathleen for stepping in at short notice to replace our […]

Online Talk: The Gaskells’ Garden on a Plate

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Elizabeth Gaskell had great hopes for the garden at Plymouth Grove, not just as a beautiful place to relax, but as a source of food for the family. She even joked that ‘I find my proper vocation is farming‘. Now you can find out about what she grew, where and why based on original sources […]

£5

Online Talk: North and South Fan Fiction – A Writing Passion

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Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South continues to be beloved by fans around the world. Many who admire the novel or the BBC series, have been inspired to contribute their own twist to this iconic love story set against the backdrop of industrial England. Through the use of retellings and continuations, Gaskell fans have developed a […]

£5

Online Talk: Margaret Hale – North and South

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Our passion for North and South continues as we take a closer look at lead character Margaret Hale. Our heroine is famous for her growing love affair with mill-owner John Thornton (played so well by Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage in the 2004 BBC TV adaptation) and their relationship is at the heart of both […]

£5

Mrs Gaskell’s Personal Pantheon – with Bob Gamble

Francis Holland School 39 Graham Terrace, London, United Kingdom

Bob’s book of this title appeared in August 2020 and highlights connections between Unitarian communities across England by following the life and times of Elizabeth Gaskell's dear friend, Janetta Bishop Mitchell. Janetta's closeness to the Reverend William Turner of Newcastle upon Tyne emphasises why a correct identification of 'Miss Mitchell' is significant to Gaskell biography. This […]

Online Talk: Bad Women

online

‘Revenge may be wicked, but it’s perfectly natural.’ Becky Sharpe, Vanity Fair, 1847 The stereotype of the Victorian woman is that of a domestic angel, pure, innocent and a helpmate to her husband. But the women in this talk challenge that with a vengeance! Enjoy a look at the dark side with the bad women […]

£5

Online Talk: Mary Barton and the Year of Revolutions

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Mary Barton and the Year of Revolutions: ‘John Barton became a Chartist, a Communist’ Elizabeth Gaskell’s debut novel Mary Barton (1848) is recognised as one of the most important Victorian works to explore the working class Chartist movement, in this case through the character of Mary’s father, John Barton. Popular speaker Prof Mike Sanders is back to reveal […]

£5

Manchester Meeting – Domestic Mental Cruelty in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Works

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

Kathleen Gentle's talk for our October meeting will focus on familial/spousal abuse in Gaskell's works. She'll  discuss Gaskell's depiction of physical and mental cruelty and how she criticises her contemporary culture for their complicity in the abuse of women in spousal relationships. Kathleen completed her undergraduate and MA degrees in English Literature at the University […]

£5 – £6

Online Talk: Song of the Shirt

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With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch! stitch! stitch! Thomas Hood wrote the famous poem The Song of the Shirt (1843), in response to a newspaper report about a widow and seamstress named Mrs Biddell who was forced, like many seamstresses of her day, to […]

£5

Online Talk: Ann Radcliffe and the Female Gothic

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Ann Radcliffe and the Female Gothic – ‘A genius of no common stamp’ Get ready for a spooky night of literature as we celebrate the bicentenary of Ann Radcliffe, the ‘mighty magician’ of horror and the gothic. Once the highest paid author of the 1790s, Radcliffe’s most famous works include The Romance of the Forest […]

£5

Manchester Meeting – Elizabeth Gaskell in the Train and on the Omnibus

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

We're delighted to welcome back committee member and one of our favourite speakers, Anthony Burton. He'll be offering a tempting taster for our 2024 Conference, which explores the theme of travel. Anthony was intrigued by paintings featuring railway stations and omnibuses in the Dining Room at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.  He has explored the background of […]

£5 – £6

How Manchester Made Shakespeare Modern – Rosa Grindon, the Suffragist Shakespearean Scholar

Manchester Central Library St Peter's Square, Manchester

Dr Ian Nickson (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham) and Dr. Monika Smialkowska (Northumbria University) will talk about the largely overlooked career of Rosa Grindon. They will chart her journey from modest beginnings in a Derbyshire village to becoming a leading figure in literary and theatrical circles in Manchester, a ground-breaking Shakespearean scholar and, as a […]

Free

Can we Devise a Gaskell Brand? – with Anthony Burton

Francis Holland School 39 Graham Terrace, London, United Kingdom

As anyone who has attended Gaskell Society conferences, or joined any of the Gaskell House’s online events, will know, Anthony has a vast and wide-ranging amount of knowledge about Elizabeth Gaskell, her life, times and contemporaries. He will use Gaskell, Dickens, Austen and the Brontës to look at how writers have been promoted (or promoted […]

Online Event: North and South – The Preston Lockouts Anniversary

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2023 marks the 170th anniversary of the Preston Lockouts – the historical strikes that informed the plot and themes of Elizabeth Gaskell’s classic romantic novel North and South and provided inspiration for Charles Dickens in Hard Times. When workers demanded a 10% wage increase in Preston in 1853, the factory owners simply locked the gates and left 18,000 people […]

£5

Manchester Meeting – Gaskell and the Fairy Tale

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

Elizabeth Gaskell’s interest in the fairy tale and her use of fairy-tale motifs throughout her writing have been curiously neglected by scholars.  The fairy tale, like the Gothic and the ghostly, operates in a world of magic realism, its conventions straddling two worlds in which the supernatural is accepted as normal in an apparently realistic […]

£5 – £6

Online Talk: Victorian Christmas in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester

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At the start of Queen Victoria’s reign, Christmas meant little to commercial Manchester but during the 1840s-1860s the city came to share in an upsurge of enthusiasm for the festive season. Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester saw a boom in the Christmas trade in food, wine and gifts, the expansion of seasonal entertainments like pantomime and the […]

£5

The Victorian House: Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in Context

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

Is Elizabeth Gaskell's House a 'typical' Victorian house?  Surely houses changed a lot over Victoria's 63-year-long reign? Anthony Burton examines various aspects of Victorian domestic architecture, in order to show how Elizabeth Gaskell's House fits in. Doors open at 1pm and the talk begins at 1.30pm. We'll make a recording available for online viewing after the […]

£5 – £6

Manchester Meeting – Elizabeth Gaskell in the Digital World

Cross Street Chapel Cross Street,, Manchester, United Kingdom

We're thrilled to welcome Jessica Smith, Creative Arts Archivist at the John Ryland Research Institute and Library. As you may know, the John Rylands Library holds a collection of Elizabeth Gaskell's printed works and letters. They hold the original manuscripts for 'The Grey Woman', Wives and Daughters, The Life of Charlotte Brontë and 'The Crooked […]

£5 – £6