North and South FROM THE PUBLISHER
North and South tells the story of Margaret Hale, a southerner newly settled in the northern industrial town of Milton, whose ready sympathy with the discontented millworkers sits uneasily with her growing attraction to the charismatic mill owner, John Thornton. The novel poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience, ranging from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny and industrial action. Margaret's internal conflicts mirror the turbulence that she sees all around her. This revised and expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate and explores Gaskell's subtle representations of sexual passion and communal strife.
ACCREDITATION
Gaskell was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on September 29, 1810. Her family lived in Chelsea (now Cheyne Walk.) After her mother died when Gaskell was still a toddler, her father, William, took her to North England to stay with an aunt. He remarried, and didnᄑt see her again until she was twelve years old, causing her to feel abandoned. At twenty, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister like her father, and moved to 1 Dover Street, Manchester. She had four daughters, and worked as a pastorᄑs wife among the young girls who labored long hours in the cityᄑs cotton mills. A frequent traveler, the nature of her foreign correspondence reveals that she was a private person ᄑ she wanted the letters burned ᄑ who was more industrious and organized than passionate.