Here’s a much-needed new venture: The Manchester Literature Festival Fringe in what is now a Unesco City of Literature. As a book is for life, not just October, we will be celebrating the literature of Manchester and beyond all year round.
These are very early days, so we are starting by hosting a unique set of literary-themed tours covering every aspect of literary Manchester and its environs.
Our first event will be a tour of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester on Sunday 29 July. In October there will be a full showcase of tours as an adjunct to the established Manchester Literature Festival.
The Manchester Literature Festival Fringe is the brainchild of Ed Glinert, much-published author with Penguin, HarperCollins, Random House and Bloomsbury. Ed has annotated and edited some of the greatest works of English literature for Penguin Classics, including the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, The Diary of A Nobody, London Belongs To Me and the collected Gilbert & Sullivan libretti. He is currently trying to convince Penguin to publish Howard Spring’s Fame is the Spur as a Penguin Classic.
Ed is also a vastly experienced journalist (Manchester Evening News, Private Eye, City Life, Mojo), a widely prolific tour guide in Manchester, Liverpool and London, sought after public speaker, and compiler of the forthcoming Manchester Encyclopaedia.
Here is a list of the tours
Sat 13 Oct
Charles Dickens’s Manchester, 11.30am, from the Queen Victoria statue, Piccadilly Gardens.
Thomas De Quincey’s Manchester, 2.30pm, Art Gallery.
Mon 15 Oct
Elizabeth Gaskell’s Manchester, 1pm, St Ann’s Church.
Tue 16 Oct
Anthony Burgess’s Manchester, 11.30am, St Ann’s Church.
Wed 17 Oct
Literary 1st Editions and Rarities, 1.30pm from John Rylands Library.
Fri 19 Oct
“Fame Is The Spur” – the Manchester of Howard Spring, 2.30pm, from Central Library.
Sun 21 Oct
John Cooper Clarke’s Manchester, 12 noon, Band on the Wall. The Literary and Lyrical Genius of Mark E. Smith, 2.30pm, from the Queen Victoria statue, Piccadilly Gardens.
Wed 24 Oct
Literary Manchester: The Grand Tour (from the Portico Library to Anthony Burgess’s café), 11am from the Art Gallery.
Fri 26 Oct
Manchester and the Golden Age of Poetry (from Lord Byron to Lemn Sissay), 11.30am from the Queen Victoria statue, Piccadilly Gardens.
William Shakespeare’s Manchester, 2.30pm from the John Rylands Library.
Sat 27 Oct
Ted Hughes Country, 11.30am from Mytholmroyd station.
Sun 28 Oct
On the Trail of the Brontes, 1pm from Haworth steam railway station.
