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A painting of a Victorian woman in green dress looking up to heaven with her hands clasped together. She sits at a table by the window and on the table is a half made shirt.

: Online Talk: Song of the Shirt

With fingers weary and worn,    With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags,    Plying her needle and thread—       Stitch! stitch! stitch! Thomas Hood wrote the famous poem The Song of the Shirt (1843), in response to a newspaper report about a widow and seamstress named Mrs Biddell who was forced, like many seamstresses of her day, to work for a pittance on which she could barely survive. So how can the poem help us better understand Elizabeth Gaskell's popular novel Mary

: Online Talk: ‘My joy was in the North Country’: Beatrix Potter, the North, and the Gaskell family

Beatrix Potter is best known for her iconic children’s characters including Peter Rabbit, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle Duck, Squirrel Nutkin and many more but she was also a keen natural scientist and conservationist. From her unloved home in Kensington, her love of the ‘North country’ drove her to pursue a life of freedom in the Lake District. In this talk, National Trust curator Helen Antrobus will explore Potter’s lifelong affiliation with the north, her relationship with her family’s
Victorian woman in blue dress writing at her desk

: Online Talk: Writing Women

Join Dr Diane Duffy for a special look at 19th century women writers’ experiences, starting with Elizabeth Gaskell and reflecting on the lives of giants of literature including Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. How were their experiences different to male writers? What did the reading public think of women? How did women writers manage the domestic and creative life? Did they stretch or break the boundaries of convention? Find out more about the writing
Mr Thornton (played by Richard Armitage) and Mr Darcy (played by Colin Firth)

: Online Talk: Valentines- Mr Thornton V Mr Darcy

In this lively online event we take a closer look at two of literature’s best loved heroes – Mr Thornton from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. Sit back and enjoy a Valentine's treat as we celebrate two delicious literary leading men. Discover how our heroes compare and contrast as they maintain their honour and overcome challenges to win the heart of their leading ladies, Margaret Hale and Lizzy Bennet.
Original illustration from That Lass o'Lowrieshowing a pit brow lassie

: Online Talk: From Mary Barton to The Secret Garden – Elizabeth Gaskell and Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett is best known for her children's books The Secret Garden (1911) and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1888) but she first made her name with industrial novels That Lass o' Lowrie's (1877) and Haworth's (1879). That Lass o' Lowrie's tells the story of a remarkable 'pit brow lassie' (woman coal worker) Joan Lowrie, while Haworth's offers a rags to riches to rags tale from the foundry floor. Manchester-born Burnett admired Elizabeth Gaskell and here Professor Sanders explores how her industrial novels reflect both Mary Barton (1848) and North
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