North and South

Elizabeth Gaskell’s beloved Victorian classic examines social class, integrity, and the tensions between solidarity and autonomy, through the lens of England’s Industrial Revolution—freshly presented with an introduction by bestselling author Adelle Waldman

Nineteen-year-old Margaret Hale is devastated when her father unexpectedly gives up their family’s financial security and their picturesque country home in southern England for the dingy northern manufacturing city of Milton. Raised among high London society, Margaret is horrified by the north—full of clattering machinery; a surly, plain-spoken populace; and a bitter class divide between factory owners and workers.

Fitting neatly into neither class, Margaret moves on the outskirts of both circles—meeting the brusque, rigidly-principled factory owner Mr. Thornton, as well as the union leader Mr. Higgins and his invalid daughter Bessy. While Margaret seeks to reconcile her southern upbringing with the north’s ideals of commerce and self-sufficiency, she must also balance her parents’ increasing dependence on her as well as a heavy family secret and her own acute sense of unbelonging.

As Margaret’s pride and ingrained biases tangle with her strong conscience and a growing sense of moral outrage, she clashes again and again in outspoken debates with Mr. Thornton, who comes to admire her despite Margaret’s own disregard. But after the union calls for a town-wide strike, Margaret’s perceptions of her old life and her new home in Milton—and of the people who live there—are shaken to the core.

In this celebrated social classic, Elizabeth Gaskell presents a richly-drawn moral heroine, an aching romance, and an industry town on the knife’s edge of labor revolt—with a prescient insight and empathy that feel more than a century ahead of their time.Elizabeth Gaskell was born in London in 1810. In 1832 she married William Gaskell, with whom she had four daughters. For over a decade, she wrote for Charles Dickens’s magazine Household Words, where she serially published North and South in its first format. Her other works include the novels Mary Barton, Cranford, Ruth, and Wives and Daughters, as well as a biography of Charlotte Brontë. She died in 1865.

Adelle Waldman is the bestselling author of Help Wanted, named a best book of the year by Vogue, Vulture, Elle, and The Economist, and of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., named a best book of the year by The New Yorker, NPR, Slate, The Economist, and others.Modern Library Torchbearers; Introduction by bestselling author Adelle Waldman