'I'm annoyed I'd never heard of Elizabeth Gaskell'

A year after starting work at the Manchester home of the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, one of its writers-in-residence says she is "annoyed" she had never heard of her before, because her work is "so fulfilling".

Princess Arinola Adegbite was one of three young women chosen for the role precisely because they had never read works by the Cranford author.

Gaskell's novels no longer feature on the school curriculum and the last TV adaptation of her work was in 2009.

From family fallouts to political decentralisation, she broke conventions and scandalised some Victorians by writing about relationship and societal issues which still resonate.

Despite being from Manchester, English literature graduate Princess says: "What annoyed me is that I'd never heard about her before.

"These are the type of people I would love to have studied at school - it would have felt so fulfilling."

Since becoming one of three writers-in-residence, she has penned poems inspired by Gaskell.

The trio's works have now been compiled in a new book called "I've never read Elizabeth Gaskell" following a summer exhibition of their writings at the Plymouth Grove home.

"I especially liked being in her room," Princess says. "It's like I could feel her energy there.

"I imagined her brushing her hair and talking to me and one of my poems was inspired by that."

The house was sold by Gaskell's descendants and became accommodation for international university students from 1970 to the turn of the century.

It officially reopened in 2014 as a museum dedicated to the author, where visitors can also enjoy the restored garden.

"I was working there - really immersed in the house - from March and April," Princess says.

"It was so beautiful to see the gardens from when they had a few flowers to when they fully bloomed.

"I wrote about that and how trees lose their leaves and experience grief. Why would I be any different?"

The residency enabled her to "explore that and how Elizabeth inspires me as someone who's not here anymore but can still assert some type of influence on me".

Exhibits of the trio's works are currently being toured around libraries in Greater Manchester.

Museum director Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd says it follows the success of the summer display at Gaskell's house, which attracted "new types of visitors through the door, who saw it on Instagram and were intrigued".

"I think there's a shift in the idea of cultural accessibility and how you access some historical writers," she says.

"It doesn't have to just be very dry non-fiction or somebody telling somebody about a person.

"This is a valid form of interpretation - through poetry, through a play, through a short story."

Gaskell's House opens three days a week and draws more than 5,000 visitors annually, which Sally says "isn't a huge number" – especially when compared with the homes of 19th Century writers Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters.

"She isn't widely read or taught in Manchester schools, so why would people know about her?" she says.

"Unless you've got a parent or a librarian or somebody who introduces you to Elizabeth Gaskell, how would you know about it?"

Sally describes it as "a barrier to stopping certain people coming and certainly stopping younger people as well".

"So it's about how you present her in a way that is relevant and giving the younger audience a reason to come.

"We know she's relevant and certainly period dramas and things like that are often a way in for younger audiences.

"But we've not had one for quite some time."

• Born in London in 1810, Elizabeth Gaskell moved to Cheshire after her mother's death and spent her childhood with her aunt in Knutsford - the inspiration for Cranford
• Following her baby son's death, she was encouraged to take up writing by her husband Reverend William Gaskell
• They lived in Manchester, then a centre of industry and radical politics
• She wrote eight novels alongside shorter works and a posthumous biography of fellow writer and friend Charlotte Bronte
• Her works include Cranford, North and South, Mary Barton and Wives and Daughters
• Gaskell died in 1865, just before concluding Wives and Daughters, and is buried in Knutsford

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