Second-Hand Book Sale at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Carmel Smickersgill, Tours & Activities Editor
Elizabeth Gaskell’s House welcomes visitors for tours, visits and exhibitions often. Once a month however, the heritage home plays host to what has been named ‘Manchester’s best second-hand book sale’. A more fitting venue couldn’t be found. Explore well loved titles in the same four walls Elizabeth Gaskell looked at whilst she wrote her hit novels and entertained Charles Dickens.
Every genre can be found in this feast of literature as two rooms in the house become totally taken over by second-hand books of all varieties. The beauty of a physical book which has had a previous life, can be found in the way it carries the signs of its previous owner. Places where they might have got stuck into the story, traces of a previously folded page where it has have carried a certain significance for the previous reader. Although reading is famously a solitary activity there’s so much community and common experience to be found over a good book. Events like these book sales are an opportunity for the literarily minded people of Manchester to come together and share in their solitary passion.
All the books are of a high quality, with the collections feeling more curated than your average second hand sale. Amongst the piles of paper you can find contemporary fiction, crime writing, gripping thrillers, well loved and known classics, biographies, histories and children’s titles. There is more than enough variety to cater for all kinds of literary taste.
If, when you attend the house for the book sale, you’re captivated by the history and heritage of the place, why not plan a future visit and take a tour. Delve into Elizabeth Gaskell’s life in more detail, explore the separation between the main house and servants quarters as well as gaining a better understanding of the day to day life of a female writer during Victorian era Manchester.
