Blogs & News

: Hearts, Hands and Cake

… make the world (if I am but strong enough in expression), honour the woman as much as they have admired the writer 'Hearts, Hands, and Cake’ is a creative re-imagining of a period in the life of Elizabeth Gaskell, charting her rise from debut novelist and minister’s wife to established author and social reformer. Following her first novel ‘Mary Barton’, Elizabeth is thrust into the inner circles of British literary society, meeting the renowned Charles Dickens and

: Bonnets at Dawn: Charlotte & Elizabeth

We are delighted to welcome the Literary Thunderdome that is Bonnets at Dawn to Elizabeth Gaskell's House for a panel discussion about the friendship between Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell. Bonnets at Dawn team, Lauren Burke and Hannah Chapman, will be joined by Amy Rowbottom from the Brontë Parsonage and will welcome questions and contributions from the audience. Lauren Burke and Hannah Chapman (aka Bonnets at Dawn) go head to head to compare and contrast the lives and work of

: Feral

Ever wondered if you missed your chance to be wild? Sonya has been spinning a lot of plates recently; she’s really good at it but she’s definitely not the untamed woman she thought she’d be by now. Sometimes she feels like a feral beast backed into a corner.  There’s no escaping social expectation and she fears she’s missed her chance. In September 2017 Sonya headed off on a hitchhiking mission to Oban to find 60’s folk legend and

: Reading the Nineteenth Century – Students choice

Nineteenth-century novelists are not only masterful storytellers, but also valuable witnesses of their times. In this monthly course, we will be reading Victorian novels in the light of what they tell us about the age in which they were written.  What were the issues that concerned our forebears? Predictably drugs, alcohol, love, the position of women, religion, social justice – sounds familiar? This course is for the general reader, who wants to delve a little more deeply into

: Reading the Nineteenth Century – The Woman in White

Nineteenth-century novelists are not only masterful storytellers, but also valuable witnesses of their times. In this monthly course, we will be reading Victorian novels in the light of what they tell us about the age in which they were written.  What were the issues that concerned our forebears? Predictably drugs, alcohol, love, the position of women, religion, social justice – sounds familiar? This course is for the general reader who wants to delve a little more deeply into