kells30 's review for:

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

5.0

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North and South is by far one of my favourite reads so far this year. The heroine, Margaret, is initially introduced living with her aunt’s family amongst the buzz and gentility of London society, where she seems to be loved and valued, and yet overlooked in favour of her beautiful cousin Edith, who is soon to marry. After the wedding Margaret immediately returns to the quiet and serene village of Helstone, to the parsonage of her father and mother, where she delights in the countryside and tradition of the south and takes an interest in helping the people she has known all her life. She is abruptly jarred out of this peaceful start by several elements in quick succession: first a proposal of marriage she had no inkling to expect, and flatly refuses, followed by the revelation from her father that his religious doubts must cause him to give up his living as the vicar with almost no warning. The greatest change is the family’s consequent upheaval to a completely new life in one of the new manufacturing towns of the north; a place of the greatest innovation and industry and which Margaret initially regards with disdain. But slowly Margaret is drawn into the social upheaval, taking an interest in the family of a rough cotton worker and his daughters, against the part of the mill owner, Mr Thornton, who is her father’s pupil in the classics, and a self-made man representative of the new industrial town success. Misunderstandings between the two arise, which had me skipping to the end impatient to try and ascertain how it would turn out. I enjoyed the slow transformation Margaret and Mr Thornton wrought on each other’s viewpoints, and the contrast that was made when Margaret again entered London society in the latter half of the novel, having experienced life in the manufacturing town of Milton. I will definitely read more of Elizabeth Gaskell’s works.