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North and South

By: Elizabeth Gaskell
Narrated by: Harriet Seed
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Summary

Margaret Hale, a 19-year-old girl, is returning to her family’s village after living with her aunt for nearly a decade. Her life is quickly thrown into upheaval upon her return, as her father leaves his vocation as a pastor in the Church of England, and their family is scorned for dissenting.

To escape the reputation, the Hales move to Milton, a city experiencing the dramatic changes of the Industrial Revolution, and suffering from the poverty and coarse nature of a manufacturing town. Margaret begins to fall in love with the city and its hardworking inhabitants. She gets to know her new neighbors well, including the strict and stern John Thornton, master of the factory. When tragedy strikes the factory, Margaret is stuck between the workers and the managers and places herself in the line of fire for both groups in an effort to get them to reach a peaceful agreement.

North and South has remained as an example of how the early days of the Industrial Revolution felt to those who lived through them and was written from Elizabeth Gaskell’s personal experience. It explores the tensions of a city becoming run by a system that values profits over people. North and South has inspired and informed other works from the time period, such as those by Charles Dickens, the editor of the original serialized version of the story.

Public Domain (P)2021 Spotify Audiobooks
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Great generally by what's with the West Country?

Overall I really like the way this books is narrated- the voice fits the novel and its well read, however it really grates on me that the working class characters are read in some sort of vaguely West Country accent, despite the fact that this book is all about the relationship between *North* and South. Milton is supposed to be in the North of England. In a novel about class is rather sad that in the 2020s people are still so ignorant about working class accents and regional identity.

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Appalling pronunciation and wrong accent for the Manchester folk

Wondered if the reader was actually AI generated. Wish I’d noticed that there was a version narrated by Juliet Stevenson.

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