Elizabeth Gaskell's House

Note: booking suggested, but not necessary. Elizabeth Gaskell’s writing was published by Charles Dickens, they co‐wrote sometimes. Her husband was a teacher, sometime journal editor, minister, apolitical board member and much more. The Gaskells represent a lifestyle which was new—educated outside ancestry or guild, explorers of the city and new social organisations, equipped with curiosity, concern, day transport, wide social contact and national communication. You stand in rooms where Charlotte Brontë, John Ruskin, the Darwins, Charles Hallé and others were welcomed. And, though the house was not preserved, it has been restored from every reference available. Also, there is a tiny garden and tea room, so how busy or foolish would it be not to accept this offered hospitality? Much like Elizabeth’s writing, the house represents not only the concerns and trials of the new life, but what mass‐production and communication could bring, not through monumental statements, but in design, print, chair and piano. Perhaps only an hour of your time but, if you think it through, more drama and story in these rooms than any palace.