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Elizabeth Gaskell’s Continental Travels, Part 3 Italy

Romantic Rome, 1857 'I am passing a very delightful morning with you in Rome' In Part 1 of Elizabeth Gaskell's Continental Travels we visited Heidelberg, Brussels and Switzerland and in Part 2 we explored France. Elizabeth’s letters between December 1856 and January

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August is the Sunday of Summer

Autumn Events from Elizabeth Gaskell's House We’re enjoying the last of the summer with days out and the odd bit of sunshine, but you don’t need to look too closely to spot the signs that autumn is on its way. The blackberries

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Elizabeth Gaskell’s Continental Travels, Part 2 France

Paris 1853 After Elizabeth’s first Continental trip to Heidelberg in 1841, she didn’t travel abroad again until 1853, when she visited Paris with William and their eldest daughter, Marianne. They stayed with their Manchester friends the Schwabes, who had a house in

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Elizabeth Gaskell’s Continental Travels, Part 1

Heidelberg, Brussels and Switzerland Almost every year while Elizabeth Gaskell lived at Plymouth Grove, she escaped from Manchester, which she claimed gave her a headache, to travel to Europe – referred to at the time as “The Continent”. These trips abroad invariably

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Reading Like a Victorian

Here is Susan Hill on Charles Dickens: 'He is mighty. His flaws are huge but magnificent - and all of a piece with the whole. A perfect, flawless Dickens would somehow be a shrunken, impoverished one. Yes, he is sentimental, yes, he

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