#victorianlit

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

North and South was assigned to me during my Romantic and Victorian Literature class at university. My classmates and I, who grew fairly close as English students can, adored this book above the others we read, especially the male protagonist and love interest Jonathan Thornton.

What I specifically liked, however, was that unlike many of the other novels we read in class, and so many of them romantic, North and South both made socially conscious commentary and came to a comparatively satisfying end. It was an end I could live with, that left me satisfied when I was finished with the novel rather than leaving me with a gaping hole in my chest and a lot of questions. The book rarely lulled, and kept me entertained throughout the course of my reading, which anyone who has read Victorian literature knows how rare that is in a thick Victorian novel.

If I was to find a flaw in North and South, it wouldn’t be in the writing style or character development, but in the creative choice of Gaskell in regards to Margaret's brother. We do not meet him again at the end of the novel, nor does Margaret. This, of course, has a role in the novel, but to be fair, it just bugs me. Prepare for a Frederick shaped hole in your heart at the end of the reading.

I would recommend this for those who love historical British literature, especially if you’re a Jane Austen fan. Anyone who loves a good 1800’s English romance with a side of sartorial wit and social commentary will appreciate Elizabeth Gaskell.

Elizabeth Gaskell lived from 1810 - 1865 and was the wife of a Unitarian minister. After the death of her only son, she wrote her first book, “Jane Barton” in 1848, which gained great immediate acclaim, and attention from Charles Dickens. Dickens would go on to influence and publish in his journals many of her later works. Gaskell was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte and was asked by Bronte’s father to write her biography after she died. (info from bbc.uk)

Thanks everyone who voted on my Victorian Novel survey. I had to get back to my professor and these were my choices based on your votes and word count and my horrible ability to procrastinate (so Middlemarch was kind of out of the question at 316,000+ words):

* Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights * Thomas Hardy - Jude the Obscure * Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Ubervilles * Charles Dickens - Great Expectations * Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre * George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss * William Thackeray - Vanity Fair