Elizabeth Gaskell and the Cultural Life of Manchester
Manchester was Britain’s first industrial city and in 2017 became a UNESCO’s City of Literature. It has, for nearly 200 years, been a place where art and science, culture and […]
‘Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras’

June was not the most prolific of months in Gaskell’s publishing calendar. Cranford first appeared in book form in June 1853, ‘My Lady Ludlow’ began as a serial in Household […]
Elizabeth Gaskell’s Children – Part 1, Marianne

Elizabeth Stevenson married Rev. William Gaskell at St John’s Church, Knutsford in 1832 and on 10th July 1833 she gave birth to a stillborn girl. Jenny Uglow writes in her […]
Six Weeks at Heppenheim (1862)

Only four pieces of Gaskell’s writing were published in May: the last two episodes of Cranford, an obscure piece entitled ‘Company Manners’ (1854) and the short story, “Six Weeks at Heppenheim”. […]
This Month in Writing – September

How would you then define a hero? ‘The Sexton’s Hero’, was published in William and Mary Howitt’s Journal during September 1847, the year before Gaskell ‘s first, and much-loved, novel […]
Women in Science

The Gaskell Society recently received a question via Twitter concerning connections between Molly Gibson (Wives and Daughters) and Eleanor Omerod, an entomologist. Omerod was born in Gloucestershire in 1828, moving […]