Western Classics Book Club Sydney

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday December 4, we will be discussing Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1854–55).

The novel follows Margaret Hale, a thoughtful and principled young woman who moves with her family from the rural South of England to the industrial Northern town of Milton (a fictional Manchester).

There, she is confronted by the struggles of the working class and the tensions between mill owners and their employees. Margaret’s initial disdain for Northern ways and for the blunt mill-owner John Thornton gradually gives way to a deeper understanding as she becomes entangled in the moral and social complexities of her new environment.

Gaskell blends romance with sharp social commentary, examining class conflict, gender roles, and the profound changes brought about by industrialisation. North and South has often been compared to Pride and Prejudice for its compelling love story, but its backdrop of economic upheaval and labour unrest gives it a much grittier texture. For those who want to read some Marxism with their literature, people can check out a book by Marx's collaborator, Friedrich Engels, in his The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845).

Bonus reading!
North and South stands alone as a slightly long novel (400+ pages, depending on the edition), but those interested in exploring similar themes might also enjoy Gaskell’s Mary Barton or Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. Both novels deal with class struggle and the social consequences of industrial capitalism.

As a classic, North and South is widely available at some 50 local libraries in NSW (and by inter-library loan). Free soft copies from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4276

Audible has a couple of professionally read versions, and adaptations.

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday December 4, we will be discussing North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

North and South was first published in 1854–55 as a serial in Household Words, a magazine edited by Charles Dickens.

Margaret Hale is a young woman who moves with her family from the comfortable rural south of England to the industrial north. Margaret is confronted by factory life: the poverty, child labour, strikes and class conflict. The novel blends social critique with personal drama, making it a moving love story and a vivid portrait of industrial Britain.

The format is that we talk about the novel in a fairly focused way for about 50 mins. Then the meeting is formally closed and people can stay back to continue the discussion about this book or anything else.

The novel can be found as a pdf or as a Kindle compatible file at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4276 Easily available in hard form from local libraries. A 3-hour radio dramatisation can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJiO2XHGnU8

We meet in one of the semi-private rooms upstairs. Ask at the bar if you can't find us.

A $5 donation is requested to cover the costs of advertising on MeetUp. First-timers and those of limited means can skip the donation: I am not keeping tabs on who donates.

No meeting for January. The next meeting will be discussing Don Quixote on Thursday February 5.

Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel (upstairs), 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday February 5, 2026, we will be discussing Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

This is a personal favourite of mine. Written in two volumes (1605 and 1615) it has been described as the first European novel. It tells of the comedic adventures of Don Quioxte, who reads all day and all night about chivalrous knights-errant to such an extent that he goes quite mad.

'“In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever a madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights‑errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame.'

My personal recommendation is for the John Ormsby translation. This is available for free on guthenberg. There is an EXCELLENT audio recording of this edition on Audible.

However, the Edith Grossman translation is fine. It is the one usually found in shops and libraries. I do not know of an audio version.

I suggest skipping the poetry at the beginning and go straight to the opening sentence: 'In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind...'

At over 900 pages, it is quite long. For those short on time, I suggest reading the first 14 chapters and then chapter 60 to the end (totaling about 200 pages), That will give the opening of the novel, a series of 'adventures' and then the climax. Pages 100 to 800 (roughly) consist of a series of 'adventures.' All great fun, but I understand people may have limited time.

I will be doing a short video on reading the book. Check out the link in the discussion below.