Audiobook · read by volunteers
North and South (version 2)
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–1865)
Read by Kara Shallenberg (1969-2023), Lee Ann Howlett, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Madame Tusk, Yazpistachio, JemmaBlythe, Robin Cotter, thomasina, foudebassan, TinyPines · 52 chapters · 18 h 31
About the book
Margaret Hale grows up in the green villages of southern England, but when her father leaves the Church, the family moves to Milton, a smoky manufacturing town in the North. There the young woman meets mills, strikes, poverty and a proud cotton manufacturer, John Thornton, who has little time for southern manners and less for her opinions. She is shocked by what she sees, and she is judged in her turn. Elizabeth Gaskell's novel looks at class, money and conscience through the daily lives of masters and workers, and at the way two people can misjudge each other for a long time. It is a book of arguments and kindnesses, and of surprising feeling. A team of volunteers shares this recording of fifty-two chapters. Heartfelt and sharply observed, it is a love story and a debate about the modern world at once.
Introduction
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, who lived from 1810 to 1865, was an English novelist and biographer. She spent much of her life in Manchester, where her husband was a Unitarian minister, and she saw the effects of industrial change at close range. North and South appeared in instalments in 1854 and 1855 in a magazine edited by Charles Dickens, and it was published as a book in 1855. It is one of the best-known examples of the so-called social-problem novel of the Victorian age.
The contrast of the title is both geographical and moral. Gaskell sets the rural South against the factory North, but she also sets the owners against their workers, and the old ideas of gentility against the new energy of trade. Her heroine, Margaret, begins as an outsider with strong views, and her views are tested by what she learns. The book is notable because it listens to both sides, and because it combines a love story with a serious look at industrial conflict.
This LibriVox version is a second recording of the novel, as the title indicates. It lasts about eighteen and a half hours in 52 chapters, shared by a team of volunteer readers. Each chapter carries its own title, from 'Roses and Thorns' to 'Haste to the Wedding', which gives the book its own rhythm. Today, the story is still a gripping one for listeners who enjoy period drama with real intelligence.
Gaskell's characters argue, misjudge and learn, and the novel is at its best when two stubborn people finally listen to one another. With so many readers sharing the work, the listener gets a pleasing variety of voices, and a long novel never feels monotonous.
Public domain
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell died in 1865: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text