The Gaskell Society

Unknown recipient 1856: ‘I would not trust a mouse to a woman if a man’s judgment was to be had. Women have no judgement. They have tact, and sensitiveness and genius…’ #gaskelleveryday

Parthenope Nightingale 1854: ‘…in some odd leisure ¼ of an hour would you mind writing a little about what I am so greedy to know. I pick up all the scraps I can out of newspapers; but they only whet my hunger’ #gaskelleveryday

To Maria James 1851: ‘Mr. Gaskell and I want to congratulate Mr. James on his appointment as master in Chancery; though what that mysterious office may be…I know as much of as I know of the Grand Llama’ #gaskelleveryday

To John Forster 1852: ‘We dined quietly with Mrs. Wordsworth this morning. She is charming’ #gaskelleveryday

To R. Monckton Milnes Oct 29 1853: "With skilful diplomacy, for which I admire myself extremely, I have obtained the address we want"#gaskelleveryday

To Harriet Martineau on Adam Bede and Janet’s Repentences 1859: ‘I have stuck out that a man wrote them.. I had rather they had not been written by Miss Evans…but justice must be done to all; and after all the writing... should raise her in everyone’s opinion’ #gaskelleveryday

To Mary Carpenter, re: a publication by H. Martineau, thought to affirm Atheism and Materialism: ‘I don’t quite understand the domestic politics of these vallies; but Mrs. Fletcher and Mrs. Davy have thought it right to decline intercourse with Miss Martineau’ #gaskelleveryday

To George Smith 1855: ‘The Professor’ Mr. Nicholls would not allow me to see, saying that whole pages of it had been embodied in ‘Villette’ #gaskelleveryday

To Marianne 1851: ‘I hear that a new housemaid whom I have engaged is coming (from Stamford in Lincolnshire) the day after tomorrow, and I must write untold of directions home about things, as the servants don’t expect her’ #gaskelleveryday

To L Hachette 1855: I had a message... that translations of my works had already appeared in the ‘Bibliothéque du Chemin du fer’[sic]. If there should be any money owing…the friend who will convey to you the numbers of Household Words is authorized to receive it #gaskelleveryday

Meta to Charles E. Norton about Marianne’s flirtation with Catholicism: ‘Our fears about her have almost past….she re-entered her home life, the excitement died a natural death; and now I really believe that her thoughts hardly ever revert to Roman Catholicism’ #gaskelleveryday

To Marianne form 106 Haupt Strasse 1858: ‘It seems always to be me to write; but…the others, Meta especially do work pretty hard at their German; and that we have more people popping in and out than we expected #gaskelleveryday

Our monthly discussions are on Sensation Fiction - crime, detection, intrigue! Diane Duffy looks at Lady Audley's Secret by M E Braddon. Live in Knutsford, or online. Join in or just listen in. All welcome. From October 27 - book now. gaskellsociety.co.uk/event/k…

To Ellen Nussey 1855: ‘it is my busiest time of the year, and our house has been and is, almost fuller than it will hold of company, for whose amusement and entertainment I have to plan each day’ #gaskelleveryday

To Parthenope Nightingale, 1854: ‘You can’t think how generous I feel myself in giving you a whole sheet of paper, when I have only two left’ #gaskelleveryday

To Mary Green 1855: ‘I thought I had a piece of quiet before me; but then came a letter from Mrs. Chapman the Anti-Slavery Mrs. C. volunteering a visit that afternoon to stay till today’ #gaskelleveryday

To Marianne 1859: ‘I shall never be wise enough in a tête a tête with a girl who does not read poetry and novels but Adam Smith and Niall etc. & ‘and has no sense of humour but takes everything literally’ #gaskelleveryday

To Verlag B. Tauchnitz 1862: ‘ I cannot help wishing that sometime or other you would collect Cranford out of Household Words, and publish it in your series’ #gaskelleveryday

To Anne Holland from Lea Hurst, the Nightingales’ house near Matlock: ‘I did not know Derbyshire before. It is beautiful as distinct from wild or grand’ #gaskelleveryday

From Marianne to Charles Eliot Norton 1859: ‘I hope Mama and Meta will go to Whitby next week for a fortnight or so-Mama is much better than she has been for a long time but I want her not to be in Manchester in November’ #gaskelleveryday