This Month in Writing – October

Mary Barton – the book that divided a nation 1848 was the year of revolution. A series of political upheavals took place across Europe.  Their aim was ostensibly to remove the old monarchical structures and […]

This Month in Writing: ‘An Accursed Race’

We all think of Elizabeth Gaskell as a brilliantly entertaining storyteller, whom Dickens addressed as ‘my dear Scheherazade’. But how many of us know her works of non-fiction?  One interesting […]

The Gaskell Revival

Elizabeth Gaskell, the wife of a Unitarian minister of religion in Manchester, shared her husband’s interest in literature: they published some jointly written verses in 1837.  Elizabeth became a best-selling […]