North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What can I say, I thoroughly love the Classics. North and South truly is a classic. Margaret, the daughter of a parson in a small village, is uprooted from their quiet life in the country and thrown into the bustling city of Milton. The smoke filled skies and the dingy streets of this manufacturing city is a rude awakening for Margaret as she is introduced to a whole new realm of greed, destitution, and political misunderstanding between employer and employee.




Margaret's father has decided to become a tutor and one of his most diligent pupils is Mr. Thornton, the owner of a mill who has taken an interest in her. As Margaret befriends those of the working class, but is thrown into society with the mill owners, she tries to understand their differences, but with a strike on the horizon she seems to be failing miserably.




I dare say I prefer this work by Gaskell, to that of Austen's. North and South not only pulls the reader into an explosive romance, but the economic rollercoaster of manufacturing cotton, and relationship between master and worker. I couldn't put it down!










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