This book comes with an introduction by Jenny Uglow. Milton is a sooty, noisy northern town centred around the cotton mills that employ most of its inhabitants. Arriving from a rural idyll in the south, Margaret Hale is initially shocked by the social unrest & poverty she finds in her new hometown. However, as she begins to befriend her neighbours, & her stormy relationship with the mill-owner John Thornton develops, she starts to see Milton in a different light.