Elizabeth Gaskell, página 5 de 13

"North and South" is perhaps Elizabeth Gaskells most famous novel which poignantly deals with the issues of industrialisation from the working class perspective. When young Margaret is made to leave her South Hampshire home and move to the fictional industrial town of Milton in the North, she is at first repulsed by the ugliness of the urban city. Here she experiences first-hand the violent clashes between employers and workers in regular strikes. She admires the workers and their courage, becoming close to them and their cause, bringing her in to clashes with the handsome cotton-mill owner John Thornton regularly. It is a novel focused on the human cost in an increasingly industrialised world, brimming with realism, emotion and a stunning ensemble of characters. If you loved the BBCs 2004 adaptation of North and South starring Richard Armitage, you will love the source material.

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. 'In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, another wicked fearful self, so like me my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of body it belonged'. Elizabeth Gaskell is better known today for her pioneering social novels such as Mary Barton (1848) but she also wrote some fascinating tales of the supernatural and the macabre, which are collected here in this volume. The real charm of this dark anthology is its variety. Unlike so many writers of this kind of material, Gaskell allows the story to fit the style rather than the other way around and as result there is a charming freshness to each tale. This remarkable author uses different voices, tones and topics to engage her readers and as you turn from one story to the next you cannot be quite sure what to expect

Margaret Hale, 19, happily returns home from London to the idyllic southern village of Helstone after her cousin Edith marries Captain Lennox. She lived nearly 10 years in the city with Edith and wealthy Aunt Shaw to learn to be an accomplished young lady. Margaret, herself, has refused a marriage offer from the captains brother, Henry, a rising barrister. But her life is turned upside down when her father, the pastor, leaves the Church of England and the rectory of Helstone as a matter of consciencehis intellectual honesty having made him a dissenter. On the suggestion of his old friend from Oxford, Mr. Bell, he settles with his wife and daughter in Milton-Northern, where Mr. Bell was born and owns property. An industrial town in Darkshire, a textile-producing region, it is engaged in cotton-manufacturing and is smack in the middle of the industrial revolution where masters and workers clash in the first organised strikes.Margaret finds the bustling, smoky town of Milton harsh and strange and she is upset by the poverty all around. Mr. Hale, in reduced financial circumstances, works as a tutor and counts as his pupil the rich and influential manufacturer, Mr. John Thornton, master of Marlborough Mills. From the outset, Margaret and Thornton are at odds with each other: She sees him as coarse and unfeeling; he sees her as haughty. But he is attracted to her beauty and self-assurance and she begins to admire how he has lifted himself from poverty.During the 18 months she spends in Milton, Margaret gradually learns to appreciate the city and its hard-working people, especially Nicholas Higgins, a Workers Union representative, and his daughter Bessy with whom she develops a friendship. Bessy is consumptive from inhalation of cotton dust and she eventually dies from it. Meantime, Margarets mother is growing more seriously ill and a workers strike is brewing.Masters and hands (workers) do not reach a resolution on the strike and an incensed mob of workers threatens Thornton and his factory with violence after he brought Irish workers into his mill. Margaret implores Thornton to intervene and talk to the mob but he manages merely to fuel their anger. Margaret intervenes too and is struck down by a stone. Soldiers arrive, the mob disperses and Thornton carries Margaret indoors, professing his love to her unconscious prostrate figure...

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A was powerfully moving novel of a young woman caught between the attractions of two very different men, Sylvias Lovers is set in the 1790s in an English seaside town. England is at war with France, and press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing young men for service. One of their victims is a whaling harpooner named Charley Kinraid, whose charm and vivacity have captured the heart of Sylvia Robson. But Sylvias devoted cousin, Philip Hepburn, hopes to marry her himself and, in order to win her, deliberately withholds crucial informationwith devastating consequences.

NORTE E O SUL - North and South é um romance de Elizabeth Gaskell, publicado em forma de livro pela primeira vez em 1855, sendo que já havia sido publicado inicialmente na revista literária "Household Words", de propriedade de Charles Dickens, entre setembro de 1854 e janeiro de 1855 em 22 partes semanais. Conhecido inicialmente por "Margaret Hale", teve seu titulo alterado por presso de seus editores para "North and South", demonstrando melhor o tema geral do livro: o contraste existente entre o modo de vida da Inglaterra industrializada do norte e da Inglaterra rural e inocente do sul, em uma epoca fortemente marcada pela revoluço industrial do seculo 19. Quando publicado como livro em 1855, esta incluiu um prefacio afirmando que por causa das restriçes do formato da revista, a autora foi incapaz de desenvolver a historia como desejava e, deste modo, "varias passagens curtas foram inseridas, e varios novos capitulos adicionados". O livro e um romance social que tenta demonstrar a vida e os conflitos existentes no norte industrializado dos meados do seculo 19, atraves das impresses de uma jovem nascida nas regies rurais da Inglaterra. A heroina da historia, Margaret Hale, e filha de um ministro religioso que se muda para a cidade ficticia de Milton, cujo modelo era a cidade de Manchester, onde Elizabeth Gaskell morou em companhia de seu marido e trabalhou em açes filantropicas junto aos pobres da cidade e conheceu de perto as miserias das areas industriais. A mudança no estilo de vida choca Margaret que simpatiza profundamente com a pobreza e as dificuldades vividas pelos trabalhadores urbanos. Apos um encontro com um grupo de grevistas, no qual Margaret tenta proteger Thornton da violencia dos manifestantes, os dois se apaixonam, entretanto, uma serie de conflitos e desencontros ate o derradeiro reencontro, onde cada um dos personagens tera que rever seus preconceitos, chegando a madura aceitaço de si mesmos e de seus sentimentos.

Elizabeth Gaskells panoramic novel of Victorian England, adapted for the stage by the author of Iron and The James Plays.Manchester in the 1840s. By day, Mary Barton works in a dress shop making gowns for the daughters of the newly moneyed mill owners. By night, Mary aspires to join their class. As she strives to better herself, murder, intrigue and romance take over her life and the lives of those she loves.Fast-paced, epic and exciting, Mary Barton presents a panorama of Manchester life from the mill owners new prosperity to the thousands of ordinary people living and dying in their factories.Rona Munros adaptation of Mary Barton was premiered at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, in 2006.

'Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.' In this witty and poignant comedy of early-Victorian life in a country town, Elizabeth Gaskell describes the uneventful lives of the lady-like inhabitants so as to offer an ironic commentary on the diverse experiences of men and women. She explores the unlikely juxtapositions of old and new brought about by the pace of change: the effects of Victorian commerce and imperial expansion co-exist with the survival of customs and habits of thought from much earlier times. This edition has detailed notes and a new introduction which discusses the originality and subtlety of the book's angle on women's experience.