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Molly is the moral heart of classic novel Wives and Daughters but it is her flawed step-sister Cynthia who may appeal to readers more. The two girls are a study in comparisons. Molly is concerned with goodness while Cynthia’s relationship with her ghastly mother Mrs Gibson echoes that of Lizzy and Mrs Bennet in Jane […]

Charlotte Brontë is a giant of Victorian literature and the much-loved author of the classic Jane Eyre, but what of her last novel to be published during her lifetime, Villette, about the passion and pain of unrequited love? Brontë’s semi-autobiographical book Villette tells the story of Lucy Snowe as she flees England for a Belgian […]

Join Curator Elinor Camille-Wood as she takes you on a riotous journey through the fabulously outrageous fashions of the 1830s, the time Elizabeth Gaskell set her novel, Wives and Daughters. Discover what the characters would have worn from large sleeves to intricate hairstyles in a period of flamboyant ladies and fashionable gentleman. The talk will […]

Elizabeth Gaskell’s final novel Wives and Daughters explores the Victorian interest in science and logic through the character of Roger Hamley and the gentleman scientist Lord Hollingford. Roger was heavily based on the famous evolutionary scientist, and author of The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin. Wives and Daughters was Darwin’s favourite novel and he […]

Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell are two of the nation’s best-loved authors. Rightly lauded for their classic works, they are often depicted as writing about marriage and the narrow social confines of women’s lives. Now, we look at them afresh as we explore the ‘domestic novel’ of the 19th century. Many Georgian and Victorian stories […]

Two giants of Victorian literature, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot were very different in almost every way. George Eliot was private and intellectual while Elizabeth was outgoing, gossipy and deeply shocked by the scandal of her fellow writer’s personal life. So how did these differences affect their work? How did they approach similar themes such […]

RECORDING: Moss and Mosses in Elizabeth Gaskell's Worlds This year's Joan Leach Memorial Lecture was given by Dr Ingrid Hanson. You can now watch a recording of the talk for a limited time. In Mary Barton, Margaret’s grandfather Job Legh has been out ‘moss-hunting’, Margaret tells Mary, and the elderly Alice, reminiscing about her countryside […]

Edmund Potter is probably most famous for being the grandfather of the author, Beatrix Potter, but he had an illustrious career of his own. Edmund was a Calico Printer who owned a calico print works at Dinting Vale, near Glossop, Derbyshire, that was once the largest calico printing factory in the world. Kate Raine will […]

Elizabeth Gaskell’s last novel, Wives and Daughters, explored the position of women in 19th century society and the pressure on them to marry. Her book had much to say about […]

A talk to mark the bi-centary year of Lord Byron. Step into the dark side to look at literary vampires, starting with his unfinished novel The Burial: A Fragment. Byron’s supernatural story may have been the first in English to feature a vampire but it certainly was not the last and many that followed featured […]

Manchester is the dramatic backdrop to literary classics, such as Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, and lesser-known works, such as Isabella Banks’s The Manchester Man. The city has been at the forefront of industrial change and political radicalism but what about literature? How have events from the Industrial Revolution to Peterloo inspired writers? How are the lives of […]

Available until 30 November 2024. Hannah Palmer, a PhD student at Loughborough University, talks about her research into abortion and maternal histories in nineteenth-century literature and culture. Her thesis explores these issues in Gaskell’s letters and comments more generally on Gaskell’s role within her community. This is a recording of a talk Hannah gave to […]

Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was one of the most intriguing of Victorian heroines: unconventional, illegitimate, yet at the centre of a luminous circle of influential Victorians, including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Florence Nightingale, the Rossettis and Gertrude Jekyll. She was someone who opened many of the doors we walk through today with barely a backward […]

of all the weary, killing wearing out bustles in this life that of the last week passed all belief’. Elizabeth Gaskell to her friend Eliza Fox, 1852 Elizabeth Gaskell was a modern woman in many ways. She managed a hugely successful writing career, was a hands-on mother to four girls and supported her husband’s work. […]

Join Curator Elinor Camille-Wood as she takes you on fabulous fashion journey. You can find out more about the novel and tv adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s classic North and South. Take a peek at what characters like Margaret Hale would have worn in the 1850s, from large skirts to beautiful bonnets in an age of clothing […]

“Consumption, I am aware, is a flattering malady” Charlotte Brontë, 1849 Disease and dying were common hazards for characters in Victorian novels. For the modern reader, 19th century novels can sometimes seem packed full of sentimental deathbeds like Jo’s death in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. The reality was that in 1800 approximately one in every three children […]

You can step into the wild side for a new spine-tingling talk on Victorian ghost stories, just in time for Halloween! Terrifying tales, ghostly ghouls, helpless heroines – there is everything you want in the classic Victorian ghost story. Our Chair, Dr Diane Duffy (who LOVES a bit of Gothic!),  is back with a spellbinding […]