North and South (1855) by Elizabeth Gaskell

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.