North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

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 the 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, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.

wow this was a heavy book, i really enjoyed most of it where it kinda dwelt on the disparity and gaps between the Southern gentility and Northern factory men. it asked a lot of questions about class hierarchy, the function of religion in the society as it was back then, and also like what constituted “breeding” at all, instead of only focusing on the upper-middle class societal politics that most novels at the time was wont to do. i kinda felt like the last 10 chapters were a little draggy though. i felt like after Margaret left Milton, the discussion and the contrast between the classes went away as well, and then we just have a series of events that first made her lonelier and then made her richer. as for the ending, i really wish there was more said of the reconciliation between Margaret and Mr Thornton, or that we had seen how she would behave with Mrs Thornton. there's so much that could have been said between them! she was once a subject of Mrs Thornton's disdain because she was a Southern gentlewoman who was too soft, i guess, and was poor, but now she's the one saving her son's entire business. and then how would her match with Mr Thornton be viewed by her aunt Shaw and her cousin Edith?? SO MUCH COULD HAVE BEEN SAID. what a wasted opportunity. but still the book did leave me happy and i really want to watch that mini-series now.

Listening to the LibriVox recording.

Shorter than I expected, still another fantastic Gaskell story.

The only two things I didn't like were, that in last chapters mr. Thornton was barely there, and Margaret's cousin was so annoying. Beyond that I think the story was amazing and I love it.