Library / Major Life Transition
Read this when
North and South
Moved somewhere you swore you'd hate? Margaret Hale did too. Then she met the mill owner. 🏭
Who it's for
Margaret Hale is uprooted from a green, gentle village to a smoky industrial town because of her father's crisis of conscience, and she arrives with fixed ideas about the people there.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, serialised in Household Words from 1854 to 1855, follows Margaret Hale, whose clergyman father leaves the Church of England and his parish at Helstone as a matter of conscience. The family moves to Milton, an industrial northern town based on Manchester, where her father works as a tutor.
Where to find it
Public domain in the US; free on Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks, with free LibriVox audiobooks. Also widely in print (Penguin Classics, Oxford World's Classics and others), in libraries (Libby/.
Before you start
Heads up: A worker's suicide; deaths from illness.
Age: Ages 12+
Things do not change; we change.Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “Conclusion”
