Dept of Drumming Up Controversy:
J'Accuse! Elizabeth Gaskell's The Moorland Cottage (1850) Versus George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860)
Get ready for academic feathers to fly! The former editor of The Gaskell Journal Jo Pryke has long suspected that one of ( Read more... )

Thinking, following the seminar yesterday, which was, very approximately speaking, by a person not born and brought up in the UK about emotion, embodiment and embarrassment at least in a certain generational swathe of the UK population (who later indicated that having that perspective was not insignificant in directing research interests), and a ( Read more... )

Just opened a new pack of Bertolli to grease the tins for the breakfast rolls.

And on the piece of paper that covers the spread was a quotation from Mrs Gaskell about looking on books as children do cakes.

Followed by three stylised pictures of slices of cake, followed by the intelligence that their favourite cake is Lemon Polenta (something I ( Read more... )

Because I'm feeling rather like Miss Deborah in Cranford when everyone was raving over Pickwick...

Dame Judi Dench is going to be sweet silly saintly Miss Matty Jenkyns in Cranford, 'shy spinster'.

Nice contrast and stretch from Evil Psycho Spinster in Notes on a Scandal.