North and South

Margaret Hale moves from the country into the inner-city and starts to learn what life is like for the workers.

Elizabeth Gaskell highlights the difference between the middle and working classes in this tale set in the time of the Industrial Revolution. A largely autobiographical story, she also highlights the good that each group can do for each other, and the friendships and understandings that can blossom between two seemingly irreconcilable means and modes of life. Gaskell shows her great love of people, and of love itself, in this touching and enlightening tale.

Sally Shuttleworth is Professor of Literature at the University of Sheffield.