'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?'
Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young woman discovering herself, in a nuanced portrayal of what divides people, and what brings them together.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
Review
Pah! to Dickens. Eat your heart out, Little Nell. That Elizabeth Gaskell could write a death scene to make your socks melt - Scotsman
North And South explores themes that still seem strikingly modern. One hundred and fifty years after it appeared, the North-South divide - and the social and economic gulf it implies - remains intact - Daily Mail
Gaskell saw the emotional and economic realities of ordinary life with a steely honesty - The Times
Ruth, North and South and Mary Barton are at least as good as any of Dickens's novels -- Sara Paretsky
One of the most perceptive novels of the mid-Victorian era - Glasgow Herald
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