Blogs & News

: Christmas at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

Step into Christmas at Elizabeth Gaskell's House with family and friends this festive season. Bringing you the magic of Christmas at Manchester's very own literary House. You can visit to see the halls decked ready for the season at this elegant Regency-style villa. Once home to the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell and her family, you can follow in the footsteps of Victorian visitors like Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte. See each original room decorated, from the Morning Room and

: Online Talk: Lancashire Day – Northern Writers

Northern writers from Elizabeth Gaskell to the Bronte sisters have created great novels and new genres that have transformed literature. But it’s not just the big names of Victorian literature… The North of England boasts a huge literary canon from The Hundred and One Dalmatians to Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Mancunian writers have often led the way, from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic The Secret Garden to Isabella Banks’ The Manchester Man. And don’t forget Lancashire dialect

: Online Talk: Halloween – Victorian Ghost Stories

You can step into the wild side for a new spine-tingling talk on Victorian ghost stories, just in time for Halloween! Terrifying tales, ghostly ghouls, helpless heroines – there is everything you want in the classic Victorian ghost story. Dr Diane Duffy is back with a spellbinding new talk starting with Elizabeth Gaskell’s short story The Old Nurse's Story. From there, you can brave the supernatural stories of Catherine Crowe including The Night-side of Nature and her later

: Online Course – Feisty Females – Esther from George Moore’s Esther Waters

Literature is full of impressive female characters and now you can enjoy four feisty females from your favourite novelists! Join us this autumn/winter for cosy nights in with other literature fans to take a fresh look at Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Shirley from Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley, Margaret from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Esther from George Moore’s Esther Waters. All four heroines hold fast to their principles and they get what they want by the end of their

: Online Course – Feisty Females – Margaret Hale from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South

Literature is full of impressive female characters and now you can enjoy four feisty females from your favourite novelists! Join us this autumn/winter for cosy nights in with other literature fans to take a fresh look at Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Shirley from Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley, Margaret Hale from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South and Esther from George Moore’s Esther Waters. All four heroines hold fast to their principles and they get what they want by the end of