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Your Spring Season Online – The Brontë Sisters and Elizabeth Gaskell

Since its publication in 1857, Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë has divided opinion. It attracted immediate controversy and became a bestseller. But how true is it?

A new short season of online events with the Brontë Parsonage Museum tells the real story of the friendship between Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell, and the literary legacy it inspired.

The Invention of Charlotte Brontë 

Doomed survivor of a family of geniuses, Charlotte Brontë had a life as dramatic as her famous novel, Jane Eyre. Now Graham Watson’s The Invention of Charlotte Brontë traces the events behind Elizabeth Gaskell’s sensational biography and the cultural legend it shaped.

Some critics suggest Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography was historically unreliable – perhaps her sources were flawed and maybe she exaggerated or invented details for profit? New research tells a different story: that of a diligent whistleblower silenced by the very forces she sought to expose.

Now you can join us online on 22 April as Graham Watson challenges the established narrative to reveal the Brontë family as you’ve never seen them before.

Female Friendship

What was the literary friendship that became the basis of the infamous biography? Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell were opposites in many ways. Yet they were profoundly interested in each other’s work and lives.

Now you can discover how their first meeting in the Lake District led to a real friendship. Charlotte had written the instant classic Jane Eyre and then Shirley, while Elizabeth’s astounding debut novel Mary Barton had been well-received.

What did these two very different writers make of each other? Popular speaker and Vice-Chair of the Gaskell Society, Libby Tempest has the answers online on 29 April.

‘I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free’ – Emily and Anne Brontë

Elizabeth Gaskell’s famous biography created the myth of the famous writer living up on the moors, but what of Charlotte’s two groundbreaking literary sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë?

Emily Brontë’s enduring classic Wuthering Heights makes her the author of one of the finest novels in the English language. Her sister Anne has been overshadowed by both siblings, but her debut novel Agnes Grey and feminist masterpiece The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are now critically acclaimed. Compared with Charlotte, both sisters left little behind beyond their work so what did Elizabeth Gaskell discover about Emily and Anne? And how have opinions on their trailblazing works, and our image of them, changed?

Sue Newby, Education Officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, reveals all the answers in the finale of the season online on 6 May.

Plus Elizabeth Gaskell V Anne Brontë – Monsters and Madmen

We are going Gothic this Autumn with a series of events about the darker side of literature. Join us to uncover how Anne Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell used their writing to question the status of powerful and abusive men.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Old Nurse’s Story uses eerie atmospheres and psychological terror to explore family relationships and the weight of the past. Anne Brontë shattered the silence of the domestic sphere with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By depicting a woman’s flight from an abusive marriage and her struggle for financial independence, Brontë replaced spectral horrors with something more terrible, the reality of women’s contemporary status.

Beyond the supernatural, how can we read stories like The Grey Woman as powerful criticisms of the real monsters in Victorian society?

For more details on our Gothic Autumn events, click on the link here.

Keep the Pages Turning

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is run by Manchester Historic Buildings Trust (charity no. 1080606) and all money gained through private tours, talks, room hire and ticket sales goes towards the ongoing maintenance and running costs of the House. If you would like to support the House with an additional donation you can do so via this link.