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    North and South
    North and South
    North and South
    Audiobook18 hours

    North and South

    Written by Elizabeth Gaskell

    Narrated by Heather Wilds

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    As relevant now as when it was first published, Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South skillfully weaves a compelling love story into a clash between the pursuit of profit and humanitarian ideals. 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 skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 30, 2016
    ISBN9781501929311
    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

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    • 5/5
      What an amazing piece of literature! All the emotions and thoughts are so raw. Heather reads the book beautifully, drawing you in to every feeling and conversation as though you were there! Her different accents and tones of voice and expressions of emotion help you to imagine everything so vividly. Her reading style made me cry in many of the scenes full of hardship.
      Thank you to Elizabeth Gaskell for writing a masterpiece and to Heather for bringing it to life!
    • 5/5
      Amazing story. At first I found the narrator's voice a little repetitive in tone, but to be fair she was excellent at the various accents that the story calls for. Besides which, the book itself is just so good that in the end her narration style didn't matter in the least. Recommended if you like slow burn romance.
    • 4/5
      Trying to fill in the gaps in my Classic Literature genre. This book by a then popular woman author, was often recommended to me. While well written, I did t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. There was a touch more politics and boss vs union antagonism to make it wholly enjoyable. It was more of a social treatise than social satire. At times this made for tough going as these portions were overlong for me.
    • 2/5
      I struggled to finish this. When Mr. Hale decides to leave the church and take up teaching in a northern industrial town he doesn't discuss his decision with his wife. He doesn't even have the courage to tell her himself, he fobs that job off to his daughter Margaret instead. When her mother gets sick Margaret protects her father from how serious it is as long as possible. She meets his father's student John Thonrton. The two don't get along, so of course they will fall in love. John's mother is horrible prejudice against Margaret. At the halfway point I'm struggling to care about their relationship.When Margaret's father dies, this strong determined woman, falls apart and becomes very passive, just going along with what other people tell her.Thornton's change is revealed very quickly at the end of the book.
    • 4/5
      I do not agree with those who thought that the main female character was weak -- she may have started that way, in her schoolgirl years, but her involvement with the workers in an industrial town is really interesting. The male lead, Thornton, I did not find as interesting -- I never really felt I knew him, or why he falls in love with Margaret so quickly. Instead, the strengths of the book are in the understanding of owner-worker conflicts in the 19th century, and their impact on everyone. A great way to learn about early industrialization.
    • 4/5
      North and South has been on my "must read" classic list for a long time and I finally got around to it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've seen the BBC series from a few years ago so I knew the main plot points. But I was never bored - although the number of deaths especially at the end was a bit of a downer! And the final sentence made me laugh out loud - even if it does seem to end very abruptly there.
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audiobook of the novel which was ably narrated by Juliet Stevenson. These older works of literature seem to lend themselves particularly well to being listened to. I have enjoyed quite a few of Dickens' works as audiobooks.I see from Wikipedia that this book was originally serialized in 20 weekly articles in a periodical called Household Words, which was edited by Dickens, so there is a connection that is not just my imagining. Wikipedia points out that Dickens own novel, Hard Times, which was published in the same periodical just before this one had a similar theme and that Gaskell was concerned that her novel would be more difficult to write as a result. North and South focuses on Margaret Hale, the daughter of a rural clergyman, who had spent a number of years in London with her aunt's family. When her cousin married, Margaret moved back to her parents' house in Helstone, Cornwall. Soon, however she is uprooted from that idyllic setting because her father has a crisis of conscience about the Anglican church and decides he must cease being a vicar. On the advice of an old college friend, he decides to move to a cotton mill town in the north of England where he can act as a tutor in literature and Greek and Roman. One of his students is John Thornton, a mill owner who rose from impoverished beginnings to become a wealthy and influential man in the (fictional) town of Milton. Margaret and John clash when they meet because of opposing views on almost every subject but as time goes on they learn to appreciate each other's intellect. The town is in the throes of an industrial stike with the workers withdrawing their services in opposition to the owners wish to reduce wages. Margaret meet the Higgins family, first daughter Bessy who is very ill with a lung disease caused by breathing cotton dust in the mills. Then she meets the father, Nicholoas, who is one of the organizers of the strike. Nicholas is opposed to violent protest but some of the workers break into Thornton's mill when Margaret is there. Thornton goes out to confront the strikers and when Margaret notices some young men who have projectiles she goes to join him. Margaret steps in front of Thornton hoping that her woman's presence will curb the violence but a rock is thrown and Margaret is hit and knocked unconscious. The mob disperses at this and Thornton carries Margaret into the house, realizing as he does so that he loves her. Meanwhile Margaret's mother has become ill and the doctor is not hopeful about her. Her mother expresses a wish to see her son, Frederick, before she dies. Frederick was accused of starting a mutiny on board a naval vessel and has not been able to return to England for fear of being arrested and hung. However he comes to Milton in disguise and is there when his mother dies. He has to leave almost immediately because an old acquaintance has been seen in Milton and he is just the type to turn Frederick in for the reward. When Margaret goes to the train station to see him off, Thornton out riding sees her with her brother and thinks that Margaret has a suitor and he believes he has no hope with her. Soon after her mother's death, Margaret's father also dies and Margaret goes back to London to live with her cousin and aunt. Although that would seem to put paid to any possible romance between Margaret and Thornton, love will have its way. I had previously read Cranford by Mrs. Gaskell. I found this book more interesting in that it brought class differences and social inequities to the forefront of the book. On the other hand I thought the writing was not as good as that of Cranford. That may be due to the constraints of serializing the work for Mr. Dickens who insisted on the length being only 20 weeks instead of 22 weeks as Mrs. Gaskell would have preferred.
    • 5/5
      North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is a wonderful blend of romance and social commentary. Set in England during the time of the Industrial Revolution, the book takes on some of the major economic and social issues of the time. The author also cleverly depicts the difference between the rural agricultural south of England with the harsher home of manufacturing in the north. Throughout the story we follow the life of pastor’s daughter, Margaret Hale and her romantic prospects with the author’s observations on class struggles, social injustice and the effect of capitalism woven throughout. The result is an engaging and informative story that I really enjoyed.The main character, Margaret Hale is 19 when the book opens. She has just returned to her parents home in Hampshire after receiving a genteel upbringing in her aunt’s London home. At the same time her father announces his decision to leave the church and that he has accepted a position as a private tutor in the northern industrial town of Milton. The family has a lot of adjustments to make when they settle in Milton. Margaret has a lot on her shoulders and she tends to withdraw from people causing them to think her haughty and prideful but one man, Mr. John Thornton, a local mill owner, takes the time to see her true personality and is very taken with her. Unfortunately, when she barely knows him, she lets others know that she thinks he is unrefined and lacking in his treatment of others. Elizabeth Gaskell develops her story through social and economic upheavals, personal tragedies, and the development of her characters. Margaret in particular grows throughout the story. She is steadfast and loyal and takes it upon herself to hold her family together. She does what needs to be done, sometimes even to the point of damaging her reputation. But she also acknowledges her errors and has a sense of humor which makes her altogether very human. North and South was an excellent read and had me rooting that the southern lady would eventually bend to the will of the formidable northern man.
    • 4/5
      I've tried to read this before, when it was a book club pick, but at the time I just couldn't put the time into it. I've meant to get back to it and I'm glad I have now done so. Written in the mid 1800s, this manages to combine a romance with social history and the industrial revolution. Margaret Hale is the female lead. A the start we find her living in her Aunt Shaw's house, one of an affluent class who don;t seem to have to do a great deal for their money and the women lead idle, pampered lives. Shortly after the opening, Margaret returns to her father's house. He's a vicar in the New Forest, and live in more reduced circumstances than her mother's sister and their family in London. Her mother seems to feel their situation and complains that she wishes to leave Helstone. And when her father suffers a crisis of confidence, they do move - to industrial Milton, Darkshire. This suits her mother no better she makes her feelings know. As things progress, Margaret's father increasingly relies on her. The family are a bit fish out of water in their new situation. They are not on a level with the working people in the mills, but they do not feel that they fit with the mill masters either. Margaret has a certain snobbery over the mill owners, implying that they are in trade, but she seems to feel more sympathy for the working men. She and her opinions provide a southern view to contrast with the northern situation that she finds herself in. I feel that the North/South divide is slightly artificial, a divide between industrial and rural would be more accurate. In time Margaret develops human relationships with Bessy and her father, Higgins, and finds more understanding of the mill owners, in the figure of Mr Thornton. We discover more of him and he begins to be more human. Along the way he discovers feeling for Margaret. The life of the workers and masters does not run smooth, and there is a strike. This was, in part, arranged by Higgins, on the Union committee and Mr Thornton is one of the masters affected. There is a crowd and a riot ensues, with potentially more serious effects mitigated by Margaret's presence, although she maybe precipitated the events that preceded this. At times she still seems to misunderstand the complexities of the situation at play in the industrial landscape. Along with the social history, there are more human threads of story. There is the unfortunate events surrounding Margaret's parents and then her God father. He seems to be introduced almost as a tool in order to set up the final portion of the book, but as a plot device he is unoffensive enough. There's the fate of Margaret's brother, Frederick. He arrives and leaves in short order and causes a certain amount of pain to those around him without knowing. There is the gradual humanisation of both Higgins and Thornton. Margaret interacts with both of them and by doing so she seems to act as a bridge between the,. They both come to understand each other's position more by her intervention in both of their lives. And then there is Margaret's romantic life. In 400 odd pages she receives 4 proposals from 2 men, and turns 3 of them down. The final one doesn't come as a surprise, but the contrast between it and its predecessor is quite marked. In Henry Lennox's proposal, she is being viewed as an asset to his professional life, he want to use her inheritance to further his career. He seems to view her as being interesting and will not disgrace him socially, but he barely seems to know her or her way of thinking. The second proposal from Mr Thornton seems far more a match of equals. He comes to her to renegotiate his rental of the mills, he ends up by being offered capital to recover the situation. I think the contrast between the two of them makes for a clear differential between the idle affluent class (as represented by Henry Lennox) and the working classes. Mr Thornton may be a mill master, but he still represents a more industrious attitude to life, he has risen to his current position and is not above returning to a lower position and carry on working in a way that Henry Lennox seems not to relate to. At times in these types of books I wonder what the main protagonists see in each other, or I doubt the happiness of the match. In this case my only concern is his mother - but I feel sure that Margaret would prove equal to the task. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It had been described as Pride & prejudice meets the industrial revolution - I'm not sure that is fair. It felt to have more in common with some of the Bronte sister's writing (I'm thinking more strongly of Shirley) than the rather rarefied life of the Bennett sisters. This is far more gritty and it benefits from the various contrasts that are set up between the different factions at play.
    • 5/5
      This is a Victorian novel without any attempts to pace the exciting bits. It just plows ahead with plot, no pauses at all to drink tea or write a letter. If you've watched the BBC mini-series (and if you're reading this novel now, it's because you spent a few hours watching Richard Armitage stare off into the middle distance in a brooding sort of way, let's not pretend otherwise) you'll be familiar with the events of the novel. What is surprising is how closely the television adaptation follows the novel. With the exception of Bessy, who is rather cloying in the novel but a caustic breath of fresh air in the mini-series, the characters are on the page as they appear on screen. Despite the way Gaskell keeps things moving along rapidly, she doesn't fail to create a cast of memorable characters. In this novel, the parents are a lot. Mrs. Thornton reacts to the world around her with a prickly defensiveness which is understandable given that her husband lost their money in a foolish bet, then committed suicide, leaving her to eke out a living for her two small children. But understandable doesn't mean that she isn't a hard person to be around. And the Hales, Margaret's parents, are both weak and whiny. And yet their children love them deeply and also manage to have become the kind of people who animate their morals with action, so that Margaret befriends a working family and sets out to help them in the ways they both need and can accept and Mr. Thornton postures and yells a lot, then works to improve the conditions for his employees.This novel was clearly intended to illuminate what conditions were for textile workers, but did so with a certain, not unexpected belief in the need for bosses to call the shots. But Gaskell is also pushing against the caste system with her constant theme that men who make their fortunes in factories are the equals of those who inherit theirs and that working men are as intelligent and ingenious as those who supervise them. There are a number of digs at the moral and intellectual abilities of the Irish, I guess proving that humans will always manage to scapegoat somebody.This novel was a lot of fun and was often hard to set aside and I'm sure I'll revisit it soon.
    • 3/5
      North and South is not my kind of Victorian novel. True, the part about the class system and the labor strike was appealing, but there was just so much emotion and hand-wringing to get through. In the end, both Margaret and Mr. Thornton develop as characters, but it comes all at a rush in the end. I feel that Gaskell's weakest area is pacing and structure.
    • 3/5
      Perhaps the least convincing marriage plot in the history of marriage plots, until Eugenides' Marriage Plot. A great middle third, but hoo boy, that last third is awful.
    • 5/5
      At publication, Elizabeth Gaskell was derided for wading into knowledge unfit for female consumption, with her depiction of the conflict between industry and labour. I think it's brilliantly done, and considering it's only incidental to the novel's focus, that makes it even more so. It is first and foremost a romance, with the labour relations playing as a grand metaphor and commentary in the background: two people of opposing backgrounds but similar character, greeting one another with poor assumptions based on first impressions and having to build towards better relations for arriving at mutual happiness. Maybe comparing a romance to labour negotiations isn't exactly romantic for some, but for me it makes perfect sense. And I do like things to make sense, especially in the confusing world of courtship. I read this almost on the heels of Hard Times by Charles Dickens, which was published just before it and takes place in a similar setting. Dickens' depiction of an industrial town was like a watercolour, whereas Gaskell paints with acrylic. Everything is more grounded and relatable, whether it's descriptions of the buildings and factories or of the people who work in them. For a true, close examination of the place and period, this is the better of the two. Margaret seems like a Charlotte Bronte leading lady, as the introduction suggests, headstrong and independent. The novel gets off to a couple of false starts, required to give us an adequate background that will explain how she is able to relate to various layers of social strata and see all points of view, but also where her heart lies. It is also quick to establish how very far romance lies from her mind, and how much self-control means to her. She is more than just strong for those who depend on her (and there are many of those, orbiting around her), she is also being strong for her own sake as the correct way to be. The ending is pitch perfect, after causing me stress as the remaining page count rapidly petered out. I am full of superlatives.
    • 3/5
      The three stars are a reflection of my enjoyment of the book, not of its literary merits. The book basically contained for me long periods of boredom punctuated by the insufferable attitudes of basically every character toward every other. So why not one star? Somehow by the end I'd managed to be rooting for the coupling of two of said characters, so I guess it couldn't have been all bad. Plus, it is sometimes quite funny.

      The middle part of the book, about a strike, were of course interesting to me as well, particularly Gaskell's apparent view that institutions and old prejudices are the devil crushing the individuals who want to change them underfoot.
    • 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
      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
      I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as Cranford. It's a good book, certainly, but I don't know that I'll be as likely to return to this and some of Gaskell's other works.
    • 4/5
      Victorian women's oppression is pretty harsh, and I was reminded of that just by the "conflict" between Margaret and Mr. Thornton. This is a good social novel, though. I mean, Germinal is far better, but if you like Victorian romance (which I think I don't, really) mixed in with your working class issues, it's pretty good. I guess I also didn't love the Christianity stuff either - Austen and Eliot, by comparison, tend not to talk about religion so much. But I really appreciate the depiction of class conflict and class differences in this book.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes the old writers remind me of modern ones--Charles Dickens in particular shares many spiritual descendants, none of whom live up to his standard. This book gave me the strong impression of a Victorian Maeve Binchey. I'd been avoiding it until now because the title evokes the American Civil War, and I don't like war, and it's enough to colour my vague impression of this non-war-related book until now. I also knew it had something to do with unions or industrialism, and it does, but it only seems a bit didactic in one chapter, and just local colour in the others, so that wasn't so bad.

      I enjoyed it immensely, but it wasn't as fun as I'd want it to be, to be honest. Still, a beautifully-crafted Victorian novel, unread by me until now, is still a treat.

      (Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
    • 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.
    • 3/5
      North and South is the classic story by Elizabeth Gaskell exploring the theme of social problems during England's Industrial Revolution. The story is presented through the viewpoint from Miss Margaret Hale as she's forced to move with her family from rural southern England to the industrialized town of Milton in northern England. There she learns about labour relations between the workers and the mill-owners, witnessing a strike first hand, and meets a working class boy where, after much time and and many events, they admit that they do, in fact, love each other. The heart of the story is compelling. The social commentary of the time feels fairly relevant in that there will always be a struggle for labor relations as long as there are laborers and bosses. Gaskell also writes what feels like an authentic representation of life during that time and doesn't pull her punches. People deal with the day to day highs and lows just like anyone else and it isn't always easy. In fact if you updated the prose to be more modern, with descriptions of today's fashion and technology, the story would be just as relevant. That's the part that makes this a classic.Where my frustrations come in are with the main characters. Both main leads are very prideful and have prejudices to overcome, with a touch of Shakespearean misunderstandings, before they can admit they care for one another. That in itself is not a bad thing as it worked well for Austen. What bothered me is after the whole book of building up Margaret and Mr. Thornton's relationship, the final pay off is just given a couple of pages right at the end. It felt like a let down. Also, Margaret is a Mary Sue and it got annoying constantly reading about how perfect she is.This was an interesting if frustrating read. I'm glad I gave Gaskell a try.
    • 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?
    • 4/5
      Very good.
    • 4/5
      Margaret Hale's formative years have been spent as a companion to her wealthier cousin, Edith, in London's Harley Street. After Edith's wedding, Margaret returns to her parents' home in Helstone, where her father is the vicar. Very soon Rev. Hale has a crisis of conscience that drives him to give up his living and move the family to the industrial city of Milton, where he will work as a tutor. His most devoted student is manufacturer John Thornton, who, despite Margaret's haughty treatment of him and her disdain for the North and its capitalism, falls deeply in love with Margaret. Margaret's initial impressions of the North and its industry are gradually softened as she gets to know individuals like the working-class Bessie Higgins and her father, Nicholas.I had a hard time warming up to Margaret as a character. Her class consciousness and prejudices rubbed me the wrong way. It was infuriating that she was able to persuade so many of the other characters to do things against their better judgment. Why would reasonably intelligent adults allow themselves to be guided by an idealistic but ignorant teenager? Mr. Bell saved the book for me. His sharp wit brought a welcome breath of fresh air to an otherwise stuffy novel.
    • 3/5
      This book is not as much fun as Gaskell's frothy Wives and Daughters. Instead, this is an almost Dickensian look at the problems industrialization in 19th Century Britain (along, of course, with the requisite romance).Nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale happily returns home from London to the idyllic southern village of Helstone after her cousin Edith marries Captain Lennox. She has been living for 10 years in the city with Edith and wealthy Aunt Shaw to learn to be a young lady, and has refused an offer of marriage from the captain's brother, Henry. Her life is turned upside down when her father, the local rector, leaves the Church of England and becomes a dissenter. He moves his wife and daughter to Milton-Northern (where Mr. Bell was born and owns property), an industrial town in Darkshire where workers and mill owners are clashing in the first organised strikes.Margaret finds the Milton dirty, harsh and strange, and is upset by the poverty of the mill workers.. Mr. Hale works as a tutor and one of his pupils is John Thornton, the owner of Marlborough Mills. From the outset, Margaret and Thornton are at odds with each other; she sees him as coarse and unfeeling, and he sees her as haughty. However, of course as the book progresses, they become attracted to each other.In the 18 months she spends in Milton Margaret learns to appreciate both the city and its hard-working people, especially Nicholas Higgins (a union representative) and his daughter Bessy, whom she befriends. Bessy is ill with byssinosis from inhaling cotton dust, which eventually kills her. At the same time, Margaret's mother is becoming sicker, and a workers' strike is brewing and teh mill owners import strike-breaking workers in from Ireland. The descriptions of the plight of the workers, the 'violence of the strike & the military's efforts to put the strike down are worthy of any of Dickens' novels.Unfortunately, then we are submitted to a ridiculous sub-plot of Margaret's older brother who has been living in exile in Spain because he is wanted for participating in a naval mutiny. He sneaks back into England to be at his mother's death bed, is confronted by someone who knows his crime at the railroad station and kills him. It takes the last third of the book to settle all the problems with this errant sibling before we can get to the requisite happy ending.
    • 4/5
      The heroine must move from her happy, rural parsonage home to an industrial city when her father, the parson, resigns his post due to doctrinal doubts. The novel then examines the intersections of class and religion and the relationships of labor and ownership. The novel includes an interesting plot and well-drawn characters. The questions of economics and theology that are raised are complex and interesting, I think even for a modern audience.
    • 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.
    • 4/5
      I read this because I love the BBC TV Series.

      Margaret Hale has been raised in the prosperous South of England, her father is the local Vicar. But her world is turned upside down by his sudden decision to move the family to the "smoky, dirty" manufacturing town of Milton in the North after a bout of conscience.

      Margaret, initially shocked by what she witnesses in the numerous cotton mills, develops a heart for some of the poor locals and befriends them trying to do what she can to ease their burdens from her lofty position. Gradually she learns to relate to them and even to become one of them

      Mr Thornton is a manufacturer and Magistrate in Milton who crosses paths and clashes with Margaret due to their differing ideals and class backgrounds. He becomes a good friend of the Hale family due to studying under her father.

      What will happen when Margaret's new found friends decide to go on strike putting Mr Thornton's livelihood in jeopardy....

      I like this story as it combines the battle of the classes and the North/South divide which makes for interesting reading. The characters are well developed and believable. It was a bit too slow paced for me especially at the beginning when I nearly gave up but I'm glad I persevered as it picked up a bit towards the middle. There are various details that have been changed for the TV Series including the ending. I think the producers of the series did well to cut the beginning as there is too much setting the scene and unnecessary detail in the book.

      Recommended for lovers of period classics....It is obviously clean with no swearing, minimal violence and no sexual content.





    • 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.
    • 2/5
      I saw a list of Best Novels of the 19th Century and found I had read the first 31 listed and this was no. 32 so I decided to read it. I had read Cranford on 8 Apr 1956 and Mary Barton on 21 Aug 2002 and liked both. But North and South is very ploddingly written and all things proceed at a snail's pace as the 'heroine, Margaret Hale,' moves from a lovely southern rural community to a northern England manufacturing town, where she meets Mr. Thornton. For pages they interact adversely but finally there comes a time when there is some excitement and tenseness. But it quickly dies away and the story plods on and on and not till the very end do we learn that the expected conclusion indeed occurs. I found the book a failure and its insight into profound sociological facts is very limited.