Set in the mid-19th century & written from the author's first-hand experience North & South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal & public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs
- of rational thought over prejudice & of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems & possibilities which are still challenging a hundred & fifty years later: the complex relationships public & private between men & women of different classes.