North and South is a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, first
published in book form in 1855 originally appeared as a twenty-two-part weekly
serial from September 1854 through January 1855 in the magazine Household
Words, edited by Charles Dickens. The title indicates a major theme of the
book: the contrast between the way of life in the industrial north of England
and the wealthier south, although it was only under pressure from her publishers
that Gaskell changed the title from its original, Margaret Hale.
The book is a social novel that tries to show the industrial North and its
conflicts in the mid-19th century as seen by an outsider, a socially sensitive
lady from the South. The heroine of the story, Margaret Hale, is the daughter of
a Nonconformist minister who moves to the fictional industrial town of Milton
after leaving the Church of England. The town is modeled after Manchester, where
Gaskell lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. Gaskell herself worked among
the poor and knew at first hand the misery of the industrial areas.
-- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
