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    North and South
    North and South
    North and South
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    North and South

    Written by Elizabeth Gaskell

    Narrated by Clare Wille

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    When Margaret Hale moves with her parents from the comfort of the south of England to the industrial north, she is at first repulsed by what she sees; and then when she discovers the conditions under which the workers are forced to live, she is outraged. But this throws her into direct conflict with the powerful young mill-owner, John Thornton. Using personal passions to explore deep social divisions, North and South is a great romance – and one of Elizabeth Gaskell’s finest works.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateFeb 1, 2010
    ISBN9789629549534
    Author

    Elizabeth Gaskell

    Elizabeth Gaskell was an English author and poet, and is best-known for her classic novels Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters. Gaskell was a contemporary and an associate of many other early nineteenth-century writers, including Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charlotte Bronte, and was commissioned by Bronte’s father upon the author’s death to write her biography, The Life of Charlotte Bronte. Gaskell died in 1865 at the age of 55.

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    Reviews for North and South

    4/5

    128 ratings97 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Do you ever read the Introduction to a book and then wish you hadn't? Or not, at least, until you had read the book? The intro in my edition was no less than 26 pages long. It discussed, among other things, the "question of rebellion: how far is the individual justified in pursuing individual freedom of thought or action in defiance of social authority?" This question clearly colored my reading of the story itself.I was surprised really at how many of the characters of the story were essentially very weak. The strong characters of the book were people we met in Milton - the Thorntons and Higgins. Margaret goes through great trial and struggle, and ultimately does become stronger. She is also supported along the way by many people, though she often seems alone. The great question of the story regarding defiance of social authority is one we still struggle with today, and probably will forever. The public opinion pendulum swings back and forth between the "workers" and the "masters". I appreciated the way Gaskell answered the question in her story. She pointed out that there are gaps in understanding between the two groups, and that if the masters and the workers could learn to know each other and to work together toward a common goal, it would be better for everyone. Thornton attempts these changes in the end, and when asked whether he thinks his reforms will end the strikes, he says "Not at all. My utmost expectation only goes so far as this - that they may render strikes not the bitter, venomous sources of hatred they have hitherto been." An interesting idea, clearly still in reality, a work in progress.
    • 4/5
      Probably the only other book where I enjoyed the film version more than I did the actual novel. I liked this novel much more than I liked “Practical Magic” (see above), and I think the reason I liked the mini-series produced of this book so much more than the book itself is because there are so many things that can be read into a look and a glance and you can’t see that in the novel -- especially a novel where the story is told in a kind of first person omniscient, not first person directly, but it only follows one person’s view at a time, in a way, so you don’t really get that intensity in Mr. Thornton’s expression on the page even though it’s described adequately enough. I do like that the mini-series stuck to the book very faithfully (with only a few understandable distinctions), but all the main aspects of the book was there in the mini-series. The one change that they made that I wish had been in the book was with the character of Bessie. She was a much stronger character in the mini-series, I thought.
    • 4/5
      So as noted above, yes – for a long time when I saw the title of this book I thought it was about the Civil War. And I thought it would be too sad to read – so laugh at me now, get it all out of your system.My friend, Hannah, mentioned Elizabeth Gaskell as a writer who portrayed her strong women to be beautiful. Coming on the heels of a Wilkie Collins read, this was refreshing. Collins described his strong women as ugly (even going so far to describe the hair on their faces), but Gaskell’s Margaret in North and South is beautiful, haughty, elegant and everything you could wish for.When I was reading others opinions on this book I kept noticing a comparison to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and further.. a comparison of Mr. Thornton to Mr. Darcy. They couldn’t be more different, in my opinion. While both have an incredibly strong bond to their family, I actually saw more of a resemblance between Margaret and Mr. Darcy. Margaret had that same turn up of her nose, the same pride that Darcy struggled with through Pride and Prejudice. Although, of course, she was sillier than a man would have been, still – they were very, very alike.I enjoyed reading the story, I’ll admit. There was quite a bit of drama happening over the littlest things, but mostly I enjoyed the look at the workers unions and the way of business at the time. In Austen’s books we only get a picture of the drawing rooms and the gossip, but Elizabeth Gaskell takes us out of the drawing rooms and into the politics and the poverty. It was that aspect of the book I enjoyed the most.I’m sure I’ll recommend North and South to friends in the future. It doesn’t quite rank up there with some of my other favorites, but it was enjoyable enough. However, it is not good fodder for discussion unless you really want to dive into the politics. I wouldn’t recommend it for a book club reading.
    • 5/5
      I was compelled to read this novel after seeing the excellent miniseries, and I loved the book even more. Pretty much every scene with John Thornton set my heart aflutter in some way or other--he is an irresistible character. The only thing I didn't like very much was the chapter epigraphs.
    • 3/5
      Doesn't deserve its classic status. Plodding for the first three quarters, long and superficial discussions on capital vs labour, Victorian melodrama and morality (without the characterisation or otherworldliness of Jane Eyre, for example). Even by Victorian standards, the wasting sicknesses, tragic deaths and agonising over propriety are overdone. A cpouple of moments from the last pages made me laugh out loud: "glowing with beautiful shame" and "Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness [with your own!]". The denouement did absorb me, but after 450 pages of investment maybe that's not surprising! There are flourishes of insight too; Mr Bell - and the desperately needed wit and humour he injects - could have been introduced earlier and played a larger role.
    • 5/5
      This is the second of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels I have read, after Mary Barton five years ago. The themes are very similar: class divisions, and in particular the division between, in the language of the time, masters and men. As its title suggests, this also covers the divide in England between the rural south and the industrial north (depicted here in starkly and obviously overly simplistic terms). Richard Hale is a vicar who becomes disillusioned with the established church and feels he has to move from his living in Helstone in the south to the fictional northern industrial town of Milton in the equally fictional county of Darkshire. He is accompanied by his invalid wife Maria and his independent-minded daughter Margaret, who had tried to argue him out of moving. Industrial relations are stark in Milton and the central event of the novel is a strike by the workers in John Thornton's mills. Over time the unspoken relationship between Margaret Hale and John Thornton grows, at the same time as their attitudes towards the striking workers soften, particularly after they make the acquaintance of a worker, Nicholas Higgins, and his daughters, one of whom, Bessy dies tragically, poisoned by the cotton fibres she has inhaled doing her job in the mills. There are various sub-plots, most notably that of Margaret's brother Frederick, who has had to flee the country after being caught up in a naval mutiny. Death is another theme, with both Margaret's parents also dying during the course of the novel. This is quite a powerful novel and is an early example of a novel showing class conflict and examining these and other issues from a variety of angles. Gaskell examines issues of poverty with much less sentimentality than Dickens - though her characters are far less memorable.
    • 4/5
      North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, was written as a serial and published in a magazine Household Words published by Charles Dickens. It was published as a book in 1855. The story is about Margaret Hale, the second child and daughter of a Vicar and mother of a respectable London family. Margaret has spent most of her childhood years in her aunt's home living as sisters with her cousin Edith. At nineteen, Margaret is returning to her own family and her cousin is marrying. The story contrasts life in the industrial and agricultural parts of England. It also explores industrial strife, unions, class conflicts, religious doubts and family relationships. Overall, the story is a romance.
      I enjoyed the story, it was not hard to read. I liked the look at union activity verses the rights of owners and how economics played into the picture of the industrial strife. I also liked this quote, "It is the first changes among familiar things that make such a mystery of time to the young, afterwards we lose the sense of the mysterious. I take changes in all I see as a matter of course. The instability of all human things is familiar to me, to you it is new and oppressive." The story is over all a romance with all working out in the end. I rather wished Margaret would have been more independent but she probably was for the times in which the story was set.
    • 4/5
      I very much enjoyed this novel about the rising and falling fortunes of the manufacturing and educated classes. This novel struck me as quite progressive in certain ways as the manufacturer has a number of classically 'noble' traits such as self-sacrifice for honour. Highly recommend if you are partial to Victorian romances that are conscious of class.
    • 5/5
      I saw the BBC movie before I read this book and I was prepared to be disappointed with the book. But I was very pleasantly surprised. I really liked it. And Elizabeth Gaskell had so many fascinating contemporaries! Her social messages were balanced by her likeable characters and the touch of romance. Plus I gotta admit that I don't really have the stomach for much of Dickens--Elizabeth Gaskell does it in a gentler way.
    • 5/5
      Is it a love story à la Jane Austen? Is it a social commentary à la Dickens? I'm not sure I've resolved that question yet, but it doesn't take away from the fact that I enjoyed my first experience of an [Elizabeth Gaskell] novel very much. Margaret Hale, has just returned to her parent's house in the Southern part of England after having spent several years with her aunt in London. She loves the pastoral setting more than anything, but is wrenched from it very suddenly when her father, the local vicar, experiencing doubt and no longer able to continue his work as a religious figure in good conscience, takes the family to a Northern town—which is the direct opposite of all Margaret has grown to love—where he intends to start anew as a tutor. Once re-installed in Milton-Northern, Margaret must adapt to a world that until then had been beneath her contempt; one of industry and factories and mercantile considerations. But being a gracious and considerate young lady above all, she soon settles in and makes friends and adversaries alike. She's taken a great liking for Bessy Higgins, a young girl slowly dying of an unnamed illness she has contracted from working in the cotton mills. Nicholas Higgins, her father, is one of the leaders of a union which threatens to hold a strike. As an adversary, she has Mr John Thornton, one of her father's pupils, who also happens to be the owner of a local mill, the very same one that employs Nicholas Higgins. Jane Austen would never have written a novel which goes far beyond the conventions of a proper young ladies' sitting room, , even had she lived at the peak of the industrial revolution, though Gaskell might very well have paid her predecessor homage by making Margaret a headstrong, beautiful and independent heroine—a kinder, more thoughtful and much poorer Emma perhaps, who nonetheless experiences great transformations and only finds true love once she's learned many important life lessons. The audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson was a real pleasure to experience.
    • 3/5
      I waited sometime after reading this book to figure out what I thought of it, but I'm still not sure. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. I think I was subconsciously comparing it to Wives and Daughters, which was my first Gaskell read - and so far, my favorite.North and South started out good enough. With the moving to Milton, the early interaction with Thornton. The subtle arguments between Margaret and Thornton were thoroughly entertaining.I found that I was comparing Margaret and Thornton to Elizabeth and Darcy, but minus the witty dialogue.I remember thinking when the riot hit, "Oh! This is getting good!" However, I felt myself getting bored soon after, only picking up when Frederick came home and then dying again soon after.The dialogue by certain characters made me want to bash my head against the desk. It was excruciating to try to read. I get that they have a thick accent, but egads! And in the second half of the book I felt Margaret became thoroughly irritating, and I can't fathom why.I'm sad that I didn't love this book, after all the positive, glowing reviews I've heard. Perhaps that's what did me in? I did like it, but it's by far not Gaskell's best work.I look forward to watching the mini-series, which I feel will be more enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      I had relatively low expectations for this book, as I'd attempted to watch the BBC special before and found it pretty dull. But the the book itself (actually the audiobook) was a very different experience. While I found myself feeling a bit impatient with the heroine and perhaps sympathising a bit more with Mrs. Thornton than the author probably intended, the characters and their stories were so finely drawn that I fell right into this book. I was continuously impatient to know what would happen next, even though the outcome of the story (typical romance in its plot) was a given. Juliet Stevenson gives an excellent performance in reading the story. Highly recommend.
    • 2/5
      By all accounts Elizabeth Gaskell's "North and South" should have been right up my alley. I adore Victorian-era fiction, especially if it features young heroines wrestling with dire circumstances and tangled love stories. This book has all of that, but frankly, I found it rather dull.Gaskell's heroine, Margaret Hale, goes from London society to an industrial town named Milton as her father leaves the priesthood and takes up teaching instead. The book focuses a lot on the industrial revolution-- the needs of the working class versus the needs of the factory owners as a company goes on strike.I found saintly Margaret somewhat annoying -- her reactions to events often range too odd and contrived for me and the love story really never came together for me. Overall, I found this novel pretty disappointing.
    • 5/5
      The North and South of the novel isn't American, but English, although there are some interesting similarities. As depicted in this mid-19th Century novel, in the south of England are the "aristocratic counties" and largely agricultural. Margaret Hale, the novel's protagonist, is from that rural south in Hampshire, near New Forest with its ferns and trees and songbirds. She's of a "good family" from one of the "three professions"--her father is the vicar of a small village. When her father becomes a "schismatic" who can no longer subscribe to the beliefs of the Church of England, he resigns his living and Margaret is uprooted with her family to the industrial north of Milton (really Manchester according to editorial notes), for which she has a deep disdain. To her a wealthy manufacturer such as John Thornton is nothing but a "tradesman" like the neighborhood butcher, and very much her social inferior. For much of the book, she treats him with far less respect and more social snobbery than his workers. A lot of what I found unexpectedly fascinating is the balance with which Gaskell treats the captains of industry and the striking workers--neither group come across as caricatures, but people. It's hard not to place your sympathy with the workers struggling to feed their families. Nor does Gaskell obscure the hazards of their work. Margaret befriends a girl, Bessie Higgins, who is dying because she worked carding cotton, and the fibers damaged her lungs--and the novel makes clear that the manufacturers knew the dangers and could have taken steps to avoid them. Bessie's father Nicholas is determined to gain better for workers through the Union--and without violence--understanding how that can discredit him. He's an admirable figure without him (or his daughter) ever being sentimentalized in a Dickensonian way.At the same time, there are hints that the workers of that north are better off than those of the south Margaret left behind, making this a rare nuanced depiction of the industrial revolution. In the south the Hales found it easy to hire domestics. In the north, they find the mills give workers better pay and more independence and find it impossible to find anyone. Margaret notes the homes and food on the table of the northern industrial workers are better than that she knew in the south and their agricultural work far more debilitating. In the very fact of the strike there's a demonstration of the power of the factory workers that is completely missing in the south, where it would be unthinkable. The industrial workers are far less deferential and better educated. And Thornton's arguments and reasoning for how he acts as he does towards his workers aren't straw men, nor is he a Simon Legree or Ebenezer Scrooge. The debates between him and Margaret about his responsibilities towards his workers are far from dry--the novel feels strikingly relevant today.And Thornton is personally appealing from the beginning--more so than Margaret through the first volume of the book. He's a self-made man who had to leave school young to work in the factories when his father died, knew poverty, and rose on his merits--although that in itself gives him an attitude that poverty is a result of character defects and that anyone could do as he did. He is quietly kind to the Hales from the beginning despite Margaret's rudeness to him, and quietly intercedes for them with their landlord without their knowledge. He's brave--standing up to a mob out for his blood. And he early on falls for Margaret who feels nothing for contempt for him. In this industrial Pride and Prejudice, Margaret is the one who has a surfeit of both towards John. Some might be put off by the style, which can take some getting used to if it has been a while since you've read Victorian literature. It's told in omniscient, with a wealth of literary allusions (the footnotes in the Norton edition I read this in was very helpful there) and quotations, usually of period poetry, head each chapter. The pace is er...leisurely at times. There's lots of the Northern working class dialect conveyed in tedious to read phonetic spelling and apostrophes, untranslated foreign phrases, loads of exclamation points and rhetorical questions, overuse of the word "languid" and its permutations. I admit I greatly prefer Austen to Gaskell, because Austen manages to serve her social commentary with a humor and light touch Gaskell utterly lacks, and Gaskell sometimes is heavy-handed in religious content and moralizing not even Mansfield Park can come near matching. Nor is the arc of the romantic relationship as well-developed as in Pride and Prejudice. All in all, though, I found I preferred Gaskell's style and characterizations to what I've read of Dickens--and Gaskell presents a wider world in social strata and issues than Jane Austen. I found this an outstanding, thought-provoking novel, worthy of being shelved with Austen, Bronte and Dickens.
    • 3/5
      Audio book performed by Clare Wille
      3.5***

      Richard Hale, a vicar at a country parish in southern England, has had a crisis of faith, and decides to leave the church to become a tutor in an industrial city in northern England. This might be fine, except that he is married and has waited until two weeks before they are to move to let his daughter and wife know that their lives are about to be turned upside down. His daughter, Margaret, has had a clearly defined role as the clergyman’s only daughter in the rural surroundings of Helstone, and now struggles to find a place in the very different society of Milton. Accompanying her father in the hunt for a suitable dwelling, she meets Mr John Thornton, the wealthy mill-owner who has engaged Mr Hale as a tutor in the classics. Thornton is immediately smitten with the lovely Margaret, though she does not return the feelings. Can opposites attract? Can the self-made Thornton woo and win the refined Margaret?

      Gaskell’s book is more than just a romance. She spends considerable time exploring the changes wrought on England’s economy and her people by industrialization. We learn of the difficulties of the laborers vs the excesses of some owners. For a short time I thought Gaskell was going to completely discount Milton as a dirty, factory town, but she balances this with a warning Margaret gives about the harsh conditions of the agricultural workers in the South – toiling in all kinds of weather for low wages, and dependent on the squire for their living.

      I loved how Gaskell gave us so much insight into the thoughts and feelings of Thornton, Mr Hale and Higgins (one of the labor leaders). We really come to learn about them and, therefore, care for them. I wish she had spent more time expounding on Margaret’s thoughts; to me, she was rather one-dimensional. Yes, she was kind and also spoke her mind when pushed too far by Mrs Thornton, but she was so passive! I realize that women in her situation at that time had few choices but to sit and wait for a suitable man to come along and propose marriage, but I think Margaret did too much “waiting.”

      Still, right up to the ending I was ready to give it four stars. But that ending – abrupt hardly covers it. I actually exclaimed aloud, “Is that it!?”

      Clare Wille does a superb job performing the audio book (produced by Naxos AudioBooks). Her facility with accents and skill as a voice-over actress breathed life into the work for me.
    • 5/5
      Margaret Hale has been educated in London but when her cousin Edith marries, she moves back to Helstone in Southern England, where her father is a vicar. When Mr Hale becomes a Dissenter of Church of England, he gives up his parsonage and moves his family north to the industrial town of Milton where he is to work as a tutor.John Thornton is the owner of one of the local cotton mills and is proud of Milton and its reputation for fine manufacturing and increased industrialization.Thornton and Margaret clash over their opposing views on the way of life in the slower, wealthier south and the faster, industrialized north. Margaret finds herself sympathetic to the plight of the workers and the poor in Milton. She befriends Bessy Higgins and her father Nicholas, who is a factory worker and union leader. Margaret is frequently in Thornton's company as he and her father become good friends. Thornton falls in love with Margaret but she rejects him as she does not think him a gentleman and that he is only interested in making money at his worker's expense. But Margaret gets an education in Northern ways and starts to appreciate Thornton for the man that he is.my review: I read North and South after watching the BBC production, after reading about it on Tasha's blog: Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books. Richard Armitage plays John Thornton and he is so sexxxyy!So I read the book.There has been some comparison to Pride and Prejudice but other than the relationship, it is not so similar. Gaskell focuses on more of the social aspects with the increased industrialization of Northern England. Margaret is the outsider and Thornton is the insider. Margaret is smart, strong, and independent. She is the one that has to break the news to her invalid mother that Mr. Hale has broken with the church and is moving them up North. She helps her father and many of the poor in Milton. In this way she does remind me of Elizabeth Bennett. Thornton is somewhat like Darcy in that he is headstrong and devoted to his family, but Thornton is not sulky and quiet. He is opinionated but fair.Gaskell also writes from Thornton's perspective as well as Margaret's. So we know what he is thinking and therefore THERE IS NO NEED FOR SOMEONE TO WRITE A BOOK CALLED THORNTON'S DIARY. Just saying.A blogger compared this book as a mix of Austen and Dickens and I agree with that. It really is an excellent novel that is much more than a love story and really delves into the social aspects of workers versus masters and unions and strikes. Watching the BBC production did not ruin the book for me and it helped to imagine Richard Armitage as Thornton. Yummy! This book is much better than my review and I highly recommend it. I also recommend watching the movie!my rating 5/5
    • 5/5
      Done. Finally. So glad I read and finished this book.
    • 4/5
      Very good.
    • 5/5
      Rochester is manipulative, Knightley's a nag, Heathcliff's a brute, and Darcy an occasional snob. But Thorton? Let's review his amiable qualities, shall we? A self made man who takes care of his family, refuses to risk his worker's paychecks, lies on Margaret's behalf even after she's callously rejected him and is humble enough to accept assistance from a woman. The plot in a nutshell: During the English Industrial Revolution, middle class Margaret moves to the harsh northern town of Milton. There, she meets Mr. Thorton, a mill owner with ideas about the world that initially clash with her own. Given that it was written 150 years ago, you'll need to be in the right frame of mind to wade through some social commentary and slightly archaic language, but the wonderful character development and the first class romance are worth it.
    • 5/5
      A very satisfying novel. The heroine's father is an English vicar who gives up his living because of religious doubts and moves his family north to a fictionalized version of Manchester at the time of the industrial revolution. The relationship between the heroine and a prosperous mill owner reminded me of Pride and Prejudice.
    • 4/5
      This book was a relief after Defoe's Moll Flanders. For a book I had to read for class and didn't pick for myself, I liked it a lot. It helped that the religious ideology was one I could more readily get on with -- given that Moll Flanders is profoundly Calvinist, while Gaskell was a Unitarian, which shows in one line which stuck out for me: "Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm."

      As a story, I enjoyed it. It reminded me rather of Charlotte Bronte -- perhaps not surprisingly, as that's one of my favourite books from the 1800s, and written by a woman in a man's world at around the same time. On the other hand, it's quite different. It doesn't seem to go anywhere much, and despite the climax being the coming together of two characters at last, the focus is far from being romance. It's a social novel, which I suppose leads into the more analytical stuff.

      The big focus of the novel is binary opposites: North vs. South, the rich and respectable vs. the poor, etc. That comes through in all kinds of ways: dialect is an obvious one, but also less obviously the way they speak -- Margaret, for example, and Mr Hale, speak much more at length than the Thorntons. Character is another: there are several characters who are clearly meant to be exact opposites, such as Mrs Hale and Mrs Thornton, and Mrs Hale and Bessy Higgins.

      It's quite interesting to read, and to see how far Elizabeth Gaskell went with it, and how she worked around the prejudices of her readers. I think I'd be interested to the see the BBC adaptation of the book.
    • 5/5
      A socialist tract, a paean to capitalism, a Victorian love story, a bildungsroman, or a realist portrayal of life in mid nineteenth century industrial England. This very wonderful novel is all of these things; what it is not is a novel about the divide between the North and the South, but this title was suggested by Charles Dickens whose own novel Hard Times had just been published. Hard Times a novel also concerned with working conditions was not one of Dickens's greatest achievements and lacked the breadth of vision that Mrs Gaskell achieved with North and South.Mrs Gaskell's original title was Margaret Hale and her novel charts Margaret's course from a well born but impoverished parson's daughter to an heiress and part owner of a large textile mill. The novel opens with Margaret staying with her wealthy cousins in London, but after her cousins marriage she rejoins her parent at Helstone a hamlet in the New Forest. She loves the gentle country life, but the family faces a major change when her father must give up his parish over religious scruples and opts to move to Milton (Manchester) the centre of the cotton industry, where he will eek out a living as a tutor. The family find Milton noisy, ugly, dirty and crowded but Margaret is determined to make the best of it for her parents sake. She makes friends with the Higgens family: mill workers and trade unionists while her father becomes a tutor to Mr Thornton a mill owner and captain of industry. Mr Thornton falls in love with Margaret but she is repelled by his hard commercialism and rejects his marriage proposal. The novel charts the bildungsroman of both Margaret and Mr Thornton which must happen before they can reach any kind of accommodation.The reader of course recognises their suitability and similarity and the outcome to their possible relationship is only revealed on the last page of the novel. Here is Mr Thornton's view of Margaret when he first sees her in some rented rooms:"but now that he saw Margaret, with her superb ways of moving and looking, he began to feel ashamed of having imagined that it would do very well for the Hales.....Margaret could not help her looks, but the short curled upper lip the round, massive upturned chin, the manner of carrying her head; her movements full of soft feminine defiance always gave strangers the impression of haughtiness"And this is Margaret's view of Mr Thornton when she sees him at dinner talking to his colleague Mill Owners:"some dispute arose, which was warmly contested, it was referred to Mr Thornton who had hardly spoken before, but who now gave an opinion, the grounds of which were so clearly stated that even the opponents yielded. Margaret's attention was called to her host; his whole manner as master of the house, as entertainer of his friends was so straightforward, simple and modest as to be thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much advantage".Margaret's friendship with the Higgens family which has allowed her to see the suffering of the mill workers at first hand has driven a wedge between her and Thornton:"Margaret's whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing"The battle between commerce and humanity, capital and labour is fought out in the factories and mills of Milton and the rhetoric used then is just as relevant as it was in the 1980's when Britain's industry was reshaped under Thatcher's government. Mrs Gaskell guides the reader to a more humanitarian view; the fight between the masters and the men could be ameliorated if only they would take note of what each was saying. Both their livelihoods depend on the success of the industry and if they could find ways of working together then surely it would be to everyone's benefit. This is skillfully reflected in the battle of wills between Margaret and Mr Thornton whose own love story is brilliantly woven into the fabric of the events on the industrial battle ground.The struggle between the masters and the men is a titanic struggle for power and the hard headed Thornton sets himself against Higgens who becomes a sort of working class hero. Gaskell refuses to take sides as she ensures that both viewpoints are given equal weight. Higgens and Thornton are both proud men but are also honorable men and it is through Margaret's friendship with both of them that at last a dialogue can begin. Mrs Gaskell has Higgens speak in the local dialect which highlights the differences between him and the mill owners but also between him and the Hales family. It is superbly done.Milton is brought to vibrant life through Margaret's eyes and becomes almost another character in the novel. The smoke and the grime, the rough streets the workers pouring out of the factories at certain times of the day catching Margaret unawares and always ready with some witty comment about the way she looks. Mr Thornton's house is situated opposite his mill inside the factory gates, a large courtyard and a flight of steps is all that separates him from his work. Margaret and her family are horrified by the noise and the industry when they first visit. Change is the motif that runs throughout this novel. The vibrant trade capital of Milton is constantly changing and at a rapid pace. To succeed in their ventures then the attitudes of the mill owners must change as must the trade unionists. Margaret must adapt to her new situation and Mr Thonton must change his way of thinking if he wants to win Margaret. The people who cannot change must make way and there are plenty of deaths, most of which have repercussions for Margaret. Both her parents die, Bessy Higgens finally succumbs to her terminal illness contracted whilst working in the mills. Mr Bell the Oxford friend of Mr Hale must also depart as his refuge in academia does not fit him for the new commercial world. Margaret's strength of character enables her to deal with all that life throws at her and although she bends she does not break and her experiences in Milton only serve to make her stronger. Mrs Gaskell's achievement in bringing off this novel should be admired by every reader. The avoidance of sentimentality, her refusal to take sides, her realistic portrayal of industrial conflict and the brilliant characters that people her book all add up to a wonderful reading experience.
    • 4/5
      Elizabeth Gaskell's descriptions of the country at Helstone evoke Margaret's deepest feelings.The father's angst and subsequent abrupt departure feel contrived to us and to many of the characters.There was no pressing reason for him not to wait until he found a decent position for himself and a healthierplace to live than swarmy Milton. He appears both selfish and dense.Yes, his unilateral decision to move his family opens the floodgates to readers for the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional horrors of early industrialization and the consequences of the greed of the masters to the lives and deaths of the factory workers. The move allows Margaret to make empirical decisions about the evils of the factories and to forcefully feel the contrasts of the superficial and uncompassionate shallow lives of the rich part of her family with the lives of the workers in Milton.So much of the plot hinges on being afraid to speak, which becomes tedious and annoying in the page skipping way.Final Questions: 1. Why did supposedly compassionate Margaret never send Dr. Donaldson to Bessy?2. After another Yes, Reader, I Married Him, will Margaret actually return to the hideous Milton that has killed so many people she loves?
    • 5/5
      My most favourite novel forever!If I could marry a book it would be this one.
    • 4/5
      After a very disappointing start, the story picked up & I found the second half of the book very good. The main character, Margaret Hale, slowly becomes more sympathetic (although never completely free from the airs that are so disagreeable). The description of life in a mill town compared to farming communities in the south was interesting, and I enjoyed watching Margaret shedding her preconceived notions as she eventually got to know the people of the town - both laborers and mill owners.

      At first I disliked Margaret and her mother, but as the story proceeded I began to see that her snobbery and pretensions were more a result of her upbringing rather than intrinsic to her character. In that sense, she is a deeper character than many I like better. However, the fact remains that this novel will not become a fixture in my library and I am not sure that I would have finished if I hadn't been also listening to the audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson.
    • 5/5
      Pride & Prejudice with a social conscience. Enjoy! I did & am now off to track down more Gaskell titles to devour
    • 4/5
      This book is a great read, thus fulfilling the most important aspect of any novel. The heroine is beautiful and intelligent, the hero handsome and serious-minded, their first meeting unpropitious. She thinks he is rather beneath her. He thinks she is affected and a snob. Things don't improve any time soon… Jane Austin? No. Elizabeth Gaskell.Mr Thornton (our hero) is the crie de coeur of Victorian moralists (and moralistic novelists) whose remedy for industrial strife and the alleviation of the terrible living and working conditions of many people was a 'change of heart' on the part of the factory owners. If they would see their workers as more than just mere 'hands' or items of labour expenditure, then they would treat them properly, with dignity, pay them well & etc. Thornton starts off as a fairly typical factory owner whose only interest in his workers is that of their being the material by which he can make profit. His view changes as the book progresses and I do not want to spoil the story by saying any more.Margaret (our heroine) is given fairly strong characterisation and her hot temper and straightforward honesty are well drawn and save her from becoming just another beautiful heroine caught in a dreadful situation. She is a genuinely interesting character, realistically drawn. And here I have to say that, even though I am a dyed-in-the wool Dickens enthusiast, Elizabeth Gaskell has created a female character much in advance of The Master. His heroines are, for the most part, simply insufferable whiter-than-white, or blacker-than-black-but-white-underneath-it-all cardboard cut-outs. There are some marvellous creations of course, such as Miss Havisham, but they are very often so weird that she cannot possibly be seen as fully human.North and South is a novel of the Two Englands, the pastoral, refined south, and the industrial, coarse north. The contrast between the two is well drawn, somewhat exaggerated, but exaggerated for the purpose of driving home how much a class difference there was between the peoples of either area. You really do feel the difference when the chapters bring you from one part (the rural) to the other (the built-up city). This is a novel attempting to come to terms with the Great Divide and to offer a way forward for the betterment of the working classes, but without revolution.To say that many of the issues raised in this book in the area of 'industrial relations' are still relevant today is to say no more than that there are certain issues in 'industrial relations' which are perennial and long-lasting. One does not have to be a Marxist to know that an employer's aim is to make profits and that this is done by keeping costs down as much as possible and with little regard (if any) for workers. ('A company's first duty is towards its shareholders') And it is also true, everlastingly it seems, that a prolonged workers' strike will usually turn into a vicious internecine row between those who weaken and those who resolve to keep it going. These, and so many other thorny aspects of industrial life are at the core of this book. The 'solution' offered by Gaskelll (and also by Dickens) of a 'change of heart' by the bosses is of course wildly naïve. But short of preaching revolution, what other option was at hand? Even today with our complex industrial-relations machinery for settling disputes, our 'welfare state', and our more enlightened attitude towards workers' rights', we still have our ugly confrontations. It says something about Gaskell's awareness of her age that these issues intrude into what could have been just another Jane Austin heroine landing a good catch. Well, OK. There is a little of the Jane Austins about this novel. But there's a lot of the Stan Barstows too. A true classic and has lost little, if anything, of its relevance to our humankind in the 145 years that have passed since it was written.
    • 4/5
      I found the beginning horrendously slow and tedious. (This, after all, is why it took me three months to finish the damn thing.) Despite that, I really enjoyed the latter two-thirds of the book.

      I do so love me some schadenfreude. Nothing like, y'know, killing off the protagonist's mother, exiling the charming brother to Spain, then killing off her father, and finally killing off her godfather. The preachiness? Not so much, but this is definitely not the worst I've seen in nineteenth-century fiction, so I don't hold it too much against the book. Or I tried not to, anyhow.

      4 / 5 because it became ridiculously engrossing after I slogged through the initial exposition that leads to the Hales setting up house in Milton.
    • 5/5
      Why has it taken me so long to read an Elizabeth Gaskell novel? North and South is an excellent book with well-drawn characters, themes of class and religion, and a love story, too. I was initially reminded of Jane Austen (always a favorite), but as the novel progressed these themes were explored on a broader, more worldly scale. Also, although Gaskell was writing only several decades later than Austen, I was surprised to find her language much more accessible.

      This was a combination read/listen for me. Juliet Stevenson's narration was nothing short of perfection.
      Very highly recommended
      4.5/5 stars
    • 4/5
      A good novel that could have been a great one. There was much to like - especially the key relationship between Miss Hale and Mr. Thornton. Margaret and John are well-drawn characters and Gaskell has a keen eye for detail in the exploration of their inner life - and show both their flaws and good qualities. And there's a lot of wisdom to gain as they mature and learn to appreciate life on the other side of the fence. I also liked the way Gaskell makes the Christian conviction of the characters one of the themes - Margaret (a deep faith in God), her father (the troubled dissenter), Bessy (the angelic faith) and "the heathen" Nicholas Higgins - and I guess we could include John Thornton (a childhood faith that was lost). My problem was with the plot. It was a slow beginning - but then it got really exciting just to wander of with a long intermezzo in London and Helstone that was rather doll - and then a very abrupt ending - although satisfying, for sure. And why not try to develop the Frederick-fugitive-plot a little more?Well, that said I will for sure read more Gaskell.