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Thursday 25 February 2010

Mrs Gaskell's Bicentenary

Helen MacEwan writes from Brussels:

Readers of the Brontë Parsonage Blog may be interested in a recent report by Sue Corbett in The Times on the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth Gaskell which mentions our talk in Brussels.

The article begins:

It is time to move on from those corpse-strewn specials of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford shown on television at Christmas. For fans of the increasingly popular Victorian novelist, the mood of 2010 is distinctly cheerier, this being the year they celebrate their heroine’s bicentenary.

The author of Cranford, North and South and Wives and Daughters (all of them titles enthusiastically dramatised by the BBC in recent years), Mrs Gaskell was born in London on September 29, 1810, and on September 25 this year she will be honoured in the city of her birth when her name is added to a stained-glass memorial window in Poets’ Corner. For much of the rest of the year, however, the focus of commemoration will be on her adopted home city of Manchester (or “Drumble” as she calls it in Cranford).

For the rest of the article click HERE.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Editor,
A few years ago I visited Plymouth Grove the house on the outskirts of Manchester where Mrs Gaskell and her family lived. Although at that time it seemed very run down, and I think may have been on the Buildings at Risk register, it had obviously been a very grand Regency Style house ( even if it was painted in a bright shade of pink!) The guides were very enthusiastic and I often wonder if all their plans for the house have ever come to fruition.
Thinking about that house and the visit I made to it accentuates to me how lucky I am to be able to visit the Bronte Parsonage Museum- a building so well cared for with so many wonderful exhibits. I visited last weekend and finding the museum in pristine condition, seeing the recent acquisitions displayed so well, looking at the new exhibition featuring Branwell and meeting up with friends made the occasion so very special. I can't wait for the next occasion!