Blogs & News

: Lecture: The comforts of home. Domestic well-being in Georgian England

How did Georgian householders think about comfort and what made their houses into homes? In this talk, Jon Stobart will explore the increasing physical comfort of the Georgian house in terms of new technologies and shifting priorities - from fires and lamps to easy chairs and carpets - but also the ways in which the house/home was a place of emotional well-being, which involved both sociability and seclusion. Jon Stobart is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

: Lecture : This ’Merikay War’

Join us for an informal lecture given by Dr Simon Rennie from the University of Exeter followed by Q&A. This Merikay War: Lancastrian poetic commentary on the American Civil War during the Cotton Famine When the American Civil War led to a Union blockade of all cotton being exported from the Confederate Southern states, the economic and social effects on the other side of the Atlantic were profound. 80% of the cotton imported into Lancashire came from these

: The Raj & Beyond.

  ‘Raj: kingdom, used in twentieth century chiefly to denote British rule in India from 1858 to 1947, hence rajah—ruler; and maharajah—great ruler.’ Set in the waning days of British colonialism, Burmese Days is ‘a portrait of the dark side of the British Raj.’ It describes ‘corruption and imperial bigotry’ in a society where, ‘after all, natives were natives—interesting, no doubt, but finally...an inferior people’. Then we shall turn to the classic prize-winning (Booker of Bookers) novel of

: Qaisra Shahraz ‘The Concubine and the Slave Catcher’

***This event is SOLD OUT***** As part of the Manchester Literature Festival Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is proud to welcome prize-winning British-Pakistani author Qaisra Shahraz on 11 October. Qaisra will be reading from her new book ‘The Concubine and the Slave Catcher’ followed by question and answers. The evening will be hosted by Libby Tempest, Chair of the Gaskell Society. Following on from The Holy Woman, Typhoon, A Pair of Jeans and Revolt, this new book is a collection of a dozen stories, set on