North and South Synopsis
As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South skilfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Patricia Ingham.
When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South Gaskell skilfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
In her introduction Patricia Ingham examines Elizabeth Gaskell's treatment of geographical, economic and class differences, and the male and female roles portrayed in the novel. This edition also includes further reading, notes and a useful glossary.
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) was born in London, but grew up in the north of England in the village of Knutsford. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters, and one son who died in infancy. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848, winning the attention of Charles Dickens, and most of her later work was published in his journals, including Cranford (1853), serialised in Dickens's Household Words. She was also a lifelong friend of Charlotte Bronte, whose biography she wrote.
If you enjoyed North and South, you might like Jane Austen's Persuasion, also available in Penguin Classics. '[An] admirable story ... full of character and power' Charles Dickens
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780140434248 |
| Publication date: |
25th January 1996 |
| Author: |
Elizabeth Gaskell |
| Publisher: |
Penguin Classics an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
496 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Literary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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About Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell was born in Chelsea, London, in 1810. Her father was a Unitarian minister and her mother died 13 months after her birth. Unable to raise her himself, her father sent the young Elizabeth to live with her aunt, Hannah Lumb, in Knutsford, Cheshire, in a town she later immortalized as Cranford.
In 1832, when staying in Manchester, Elizabeth met and married William Gaskell, the minister of the Cross Street Unitarian Chapel. Most of William Gaskell’s parishioners were textile workers and Elizabeth was deeply shocked by the poverty she witnessed in industrial Manchester. The circles in which they moved included social reformers and both the Gaskells were very involved in charity work in Manchester. Elizabeth started writing after the death of her baby son when her husband suggested it might help her recover from her grief. Her first novel, Mary Barton, dealt with social issues such as poverty and trade unionism. When it was published in 1848 it was greatly admired by other writers such as Thackeray and Charles Dickens, who serialized some of Gaskell’s other work in his journal, Household Words. Elizabeth published many other books, including North and South and a biography of Charlotte Brontë. She died in 1865 in Hampshire, before completing Wives and Daughters, in a house she had bought as a surprise for her husband. She had intended that they would spend their retirement there.
More About Elizabeth Gaskell
