North And South by Elizabeth Gaskell

If I saved one blow, one cruel, angry action that might otherwise have been committed, I did a woman's work.

Margaret Hale

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in September of 1810 in Chelsea, London, the daughter of a Scottish Unitarian minister and the youngest of eight children.

At 11 years old Elizabeth was sent for a typical “young ladies” education in the arts, classics and decorum and encouraged by her aunts and by her father to read, study and to develop in her writing. At 22 years old, she married a Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, in Knutsford and they went to settle in Manchester where he served as the minister Cross Street Unitarian Chapel.  

The tragic loss of children, places lived; neighbors and friends who were loved and experienced… all became fuel for Elizabeth’s imagination as the years passed.  She began with a diary, wrote poems with her husband under the title -  Sketches Among The Poor - which were published in a magazine and there followed other small written works which developed her style.

It was after the Gaskells traveled to the continent that influences produced new ideas and her first work of fiction was published, Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras under the name “Cotton Mather Mills”.  

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her major literary works in the second half of the century from a villa at 84 Plymouth Grove in Manchester, England.  Her social circle grew to include such writers as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, John Ruskin and the American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

North and South, Wives and Daughters and Cranford are the most well-known and beloved of the works by Elizabeth Gaskell. Her novels were a window into the life of Victorian society and offered a view into varied social classes. 

A good example is the “social novel”, North and South, which follows protagonist Margaret Hale and the effect of the Industrial Revolution on mill workers and mill owners in the fictional town of Milton in the North of England.

In Milton ... I shall find a busy life, if not a happy one.

Mr. Hale

Margaret’s world is drastically altered from rural southern England to the harsh environments of industrial Milton.  Set near the end of the Industrial Revolution it presents a contrast of the values of rural southern England and the industrial north. 

Historically England’s social structure had been dominated by the landed aristocracy but the Industrial Revolution brought new prominence to wealthy industrialists. There was also the rising opportunities for improved living conditions by new employments possibilities for the working class — but it also came with long working hours, poor working conditions and insufficient wages.

Fancy living in the middle of factories, and factory people! 

Mrs. Hale

Strong, proud and spirited, Margaret Hale is a heroine worth getting to know. She is “not beautiful at all” but is characterized as having a dignity that was striking. The book would have been entitled, Margaret Hale except for the insistence by Charles Dickens that North and South was the better title. Her relationship with the serious and ambitious John Thornton is a compelling one with each challenging and affecting the other for good.

Be always the same John Thornton ... endeavouring to do right, and making great blunders; and then trying to be brave in setting to afresh.

John Thornton

North and South was originally published in the magazine, Household Words in serial form between the years 1854 to 1855 and was subsequently released in book form in 1855. Gaskell does a skillful job in this work of weaving together historical influences, emotional subplots and strong character growth.

There is much to discuss in the lengthy but enjoyable North and South.  Start reading now!  We will meet to discuss this much-loved work of Elizabeth Gaskell on October 19, 2024 over an early Autumn Book Breakfast. 

Don't mock my own deep feeling of unworthiness. 

John Thornton