Riassunto
Riassunto di North and South
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love romance with real stakes, and anyone curious about the Industrial Revolution seen through ordinary lives, class conflict and friendships across social divisions.
Che cos’è questo libro
North and South is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first printed in weekly parts in the magazine Household Words in 1854 and 1855, and then published as a book. Gaskell lived in Manchester, the great city of cotton mills, and she wrote as someone who had walked its streets, visited its poor and dined with its owners. She wanted to show readers in the comfortable south of England how life really looked in the industrial north.
The story follows Margaret Hale, a clergyman's daughter who grows up partly in a rich London house and partly in a quiet Hampshire village. When her father leaves the church on a point of conscience, the family moves to Milton, a smoky northern manufacturing town. There Margaret meets John Thornton, a mill owner who rose from nothing, and Nicholas Higgins, a mill hand who is proud of his union. Margaret has firm opinions of her own, and neither the town nor its people match what she expects.
In this summary you get the story as far as its great turning points, the people who drive it, and the questions it asks about wages, strikes, pride and fairness. It is a love story and a social novel at once, and each half needs the other. You also hear how Gaskell builds her scenes and why readers still argue over them. Let us begin where Margaret begins, in a London drawing room, with a life that is about to end.
In questo riassunto
- 1A Comfortable Girlhood Ends in HampshireFree
- 2A Father's Conscience Uproots the Family
- 3Milton Is Smoke, Noise, and Plain Speech
- 4Thornton's Pride Meets Margaret's Pride
- 5Friendship Grows Across the Class Line
- 6A Strike Brings the Mob to the Door
- 7Two Ideas of Industry Clash
- 8Pride, Prejudice, and Learning to See
- 9How the Story Is Told and Why It Lasts
Punto chiave 1 di 9
A Comfortable Girlhood Ends in Hampshire
The novel opens in Harley Street in London, in the house of Margaret's aunt, Mrs Shaw. Margaret has lived there since childhood as the companion of her cousin Edith. Edith is about to marry Captain Lennox, a soldier, and the house is full of silk, shawls and talk of the wedding. Margaret watches it all with amusement and a little distance.
After the wedding sends Edith away with her husband, Margaret goes home to Helstone, a village in the south of England where her father is the parish clergyman. She loves its heath, its lanes and its cottagers. Her mother, Mrs Hale, is often unwell and longs for a grander life. Her father is gentle, bookish and absent-minded. Margaret is eighteen, handsome, upright and quick to judge.
Henry Lennox, the captain's brother and a London lawyer, visits Helstone. He walks with Margaret, admires her, and soon asks her to marry him. She refuses him at once, and the scene shows how her mind works. She feels no love for him, and she is ashamed that she did not see his hopes sooner. Henry takes the refusal politely and goes back to London.
This opening matters because it fixes a picture of the south. Helstone is green, slow and settled, a place where rank is understood and nobody asks hard questions about money. Margaret carries this picture with her, and she will measure the north against it. Gaskell lets the reader love Helstone too, so that the loss, when it comes, is real.
The opening also shows Margaret's flaw. She is honest and brave, but she has a strong sense of her own rank, and she sorts people quickly into those who are like her and those who are not. Her refusal of Henry is right, yet it is also a little proud. The novel will test this pride again and again, and it will teach her what rank is really worth.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Who’s who
- Margaret Hale
- A proud clergyman's daughter whose move north brings her into contact with mill owners and workers.
- John Thornton
- A self-made mill owner and Hannah's son, whose convictions clash with Margaret's southern assumptions.
- Nicholas Higgins
- A forthright mill worker and union supporter, he is Bessy's father and becomes Margaret's friend.
- Bessy Higgins
- Nicholas's religious daughter, weakened by illness from mill work, becomes a close friend of Margaret.
- Richard Hale
- Margaret's gentle father leaves his ministry over religious doubts and supports his family by teaching.
- Hannah Thornton
- John's fiercely loyal mother values his hard-won position and distrusts Margaret's manner and influence.
- Mr Bell
- An Oxford friend of Richard Hale, he owns Milton property and takes an interest in Margaret.
- Henry Lennox
- A London lawyer who admires Margaret, he is the brother of her cousin Edith's prospective husband.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 187,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 12 h 25 min
- Listening time20 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback and hardcover at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 10 other languages
Questions about North and South
What is North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell about?
It follows Margaret Hale, a southern clergyman's daughter who moves to the northern mill town of Milton. There she meets the mill owner John Thornton and the worker Nicholas Higgins, and she is drawn into a strike and a difficult romance.
Is Milton a real place in North and South?
No. Milton in the county of Darkshire is invented, but it is based on Manchester, where Gaskell lived. Its mills, smoke, strikes and trade cycles reflect the real conditions of the cotton industry in the 1840s and 1850s.
Who is John Thornton in North and South?
John Thornton is the owner of Marlborough Mills. He rose from poverty by hard work, and he holds strong views on how a master should run his business. He becomes Margaret's chief opponent in argument and a central figure in the love story.
When was North and South written, and is it a true story?
Gaskell wrote it for Household Words, where it appeared weekly in 1854 and 1855. The characters and plot are fiction, but the setting and the labor disputes are drawn from real life in industrial northern England.
Is North and South hard to read?
The story is clear and the characters are strongly drawn, so most readers find it rewarding.