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Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell - Group Read (hosted by Claudia) 1st thread
Hi everyone! Here are a few introductory posts about Mary Barton. I hope that you will enjoy this read!
Mary Barton, published anonymously in 1848, is Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel. It deals with the plight of working classes in industrial Manchester, and ranges among “industrial novels” of that time, as North and South (1854-1855), Mrs Gaskell’s other novel set in a similar background, Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854) but also Shirley (1849) by Charlotte Brontë, among others.
Elizabeth Gaskell has long been often overlooked by a larger public, even though she was the first biographer of Charlotte Brontë in 1857. However, she has been enjoying a resurgence of fame thanks to the excellent BBC television adaptation of her novel North and South in 2004, a novel often considered by readers to be the best industrial novel of her time.
Mary Barton was a huge success when it was published. Elizabeth's first biographer, Ellis Chadwick, reveals that Rev. William Gaskell suggested to his wife that she write a novel to help her overcome her grief at the loss of their baby boy. In a letter to Mrs Greg in 1849, Mrs Gaskell confided the following: [I] "took refuge in the invention to exclude the memory of painful scenes which would force themselves upon my remembrance." (Quoted by Shirley Foster in her introduction to Mary Barton, Oxford 2006). She wrote in her preface: (…) I became anxious (from circumstances that need not be more fully alluded to) to writing a work of fiction.”
A meeting with a family affected by the misery of the time and poignant testimonies with which this clergyman's wife, who had herself suffered a terrible bereavement, could only sympathise, were the triggers for her first novel.
"I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternation between work and want; tossed to and fro by circumstances, apparently in even a greater degree than other men."
Preface (1948)
The impression that Mrs Gaskell had written practically in one go, although this is physically impossible and the documents attest to drafts and plans, never left me throughout the novel, so instinctive and impetuous did the writing seem to me. Nevertheless, this work, subtitled A Tale of Manchester Life, has the force of a torrent flowing inexorably towards the sea, taking with it everything in its path: happiness, misfortune, expectation, tension, and hope, as well as the reader him- or herself.
Mrs Gaskell’s life in short, before Mary BartonElizabeth was an accomplished young woman, very cultured, very active, and well-traveled for her time. She loved to write and was encouraged to do so. She undoubtedly had already a very personal and lively style. However, her childhood and young adult years had not been exempted of worries.
She was born in 1810 into a Unitarian family. Her mother died when she was still a baby and was sent to live in Knutsford, Cheshire, with her aunt Hannah Lumb. The youngest of eight children, only she and her brother John, with whom she had a close sibling relationship, survived infancy. Elizabeth’s father, a pastor, resigned his orders. He eventually remarried. John joined the Merchant Navy but, sadly, he went missing in 1927 during an expedition to India with the East India Company.
Elizabeth married Reverend William Gaskell in 1832 and the couple moved to Manchester in the same year. The city – 180 000 inhabitants in 1832 - was developing rapidly, becoming a unique metropolis in the world and a laboratory for all the industrial revolutions. Mrs Gaskell came from a background mostly free from material worries - certain biases may be detected in the course of the story we will be reading, especially on the political front - but she was nevertheless very sensitive to the immense poverty she witnessed on a daily basis, through her husband's ministry, which called him to work with precarious populations, but also through her friendships and acquaintance with people who were also concerned with social issues, such as Harriet Martineau, a feminist sociologist of her time.
During the period in which we are interested, Mrs Gaskell settled in Manchester and took a very active part in the life of her Unitarian congregation, as far as her family commitments allowed: Sunday School, Unitarian charities, schooling girls at her home in Bible basics but also in manners, spelling, and geography. She even sometimes improvised teaching teenage boys outside to sing, to play games and not to swear.
The couple’s first daughter was stillborn in 1833. Mrs Gaskell then gave birth to three daughters between 1834 and 1842, and a son, William, born in 1844, who died in infancy of scarlet fever in 1845. Mrs Gaskell's youngest daughter Julia was born in 1846. As early as 1835, the gifted multitasking mother and minister’s wife began keeping a diary, documenting the development of her eldest daughter Marianne and then her relationships with her sisters. She wrote a cycle of poems with her husband in 1836 and had a novella, Clopton Hall, published anonymously in 1840.
She and her husband travelled to Germany and Belgium in 1841. German literature influenced her short stories and she came to love German poetry, although she never managed to learn German properly. She clearly had read poetry and other pieces by Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther, Hermann and Dorothea) but there is no evidence at all that she, or rather Rev. William Gaskell who spoke well German, has read Friedrich Engels’s The Situation of the Working Class in England. This very good essay was first published in Leipzig in 1845 but was issued in its English translation only in 1887 (London and New York). I will write more about Friedrich Engels and his essay in a later post.
Johann Ludwig Uhland's poem Auf der Überfahrt(on the crossing) closing verses, at the beginning of the 1854 edition of Mary Barton can be interpreted as a tribute from Mrs Gaskell to her deceased children, her unnamed stillborn daughter for whom she wrote a poem earlier, and her baby-boy William. In these verses, the poet (1787-1862) takes a ferry across the Neckar at Stuttgart alone but insists on paying for three people, himself and two dead friends, which illustrates Uhland’s utter distress, but also Mrs Gaskell’s own private sorrows:
Nimm nur, Fährmann, nimm die Miete,
Die ich gern dreifach biete!
Zween, die mit mir überfuhren,
Waren geistige Naturen.
(Take, good ferryman I pray, Take a triple fare today, The twain who with me touched the strand, Were visitants from another land.)
Published anonymously in 1848 – as were ALL her works in her lifetime, except for the French translations by her Paris friend Mme Mohl - in two volumes by Chapman and Hall, London, Mary Barton was well received and praised, not least by Thomas Carlyle (1775-1881), whose words from his biography appear under the subtitle of the 1854 edition.
He concluded his letter of 8 November 1848 to Mrs Gaskell as follows:
“May you live long to write good Books – and do silently good actions, which I believe is very much more indispensable!”
While Mary Barton may not be always on the list of the greatest world classics of all time according to nowadays trendy literary influencers, it is a book that has stayed with me as one of the best symbols of hard times indeed, for Mrs Gaskell showed great empathy with those she wrote about in the midst of hard times, and many themes in this novel are, sadly, still prevalent today, or may remind us of what some of our ancestors went through.
1948 was the year of all the revolutions in Europe, the year Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their Manifesto. These years – also the dramatically hungry decade in Irland - were years of poverty, famine, riots, protests, strikes, demands and bereavement.
A special note on Mrs Gaskell’s relationship with Charles DickensCharles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle, among others, were sent a copy of Mary Barton by Mr Chapman, the editor.
Unlike Carlyle, who guessed that the author was a woman, and wrote her right away, Dickens did not respond at first, but when Mrs Gaskell's authorship became widely known within a year of its publication, Charles Dickens praised her work in dithyrambic words.
In 1850, the Gaskells moved to 42 Plymouth Grove (now known as Elizabeth Gaskell's House, a much-visited venue for many events). There the couple entertained many visitors, mainly of a Unitarian background, but also many writers, including Dickens, with whom she had been exchanging some correspondence since January 1850.
He helped establish Mrs Gaskell when he asked her to contribute to his widely read magazines Household Words and All the Year Round. She wrote thirty pieces published by Dickens, ranging from essays, reviews, verses to short stories and novels. Her novel Cranford was serialised from 1851 to 1853, as was North and South in 1854-1855. These big novels tend to overshadow Elizabeth Gaskell's many short stories and novellas, as well as her gothic ghost stories, which were much appreciated by the readers of Household Words.
However, a power dynamic then developed between the two writers – two strong personalities - over the thirteen years of their collaboration. Charles Dickens exerted control over Mrs Gaskell and made, for instance, editorial changes to Cranford without her consent.
North and South was perhaps the most serious and final blow to their collaboration. Dickens published his own industrial novel Hard Times at the same time, in a similar background and with similar themes, and asked her to edit, shorten or split chapters in compliance with his editorial requirements. Jenny Uglow, and many other biographers and essayists have mentioned Charles Dickens' words in the thick of their conflict: "Oh, Mrs Gaskell, fearful - fearful! If I were Mr G., Oh Heaven how I would beat her!” wrote Dickens to a colleague, about the lady he once had addressed as “Dear Sheherazade”, praising her ability in storytelling even for one thousand and one night, if need be.
Elizabeth Gaskell's last and sadly unfinished novel, Wives and Daughters, was published from 1864 to 1866 in the Cornhill Magazine, edited by WM Thackeray, who was not quite a great friend of Dickens.
Mrs Gaskell was a pastor's wife, a mother and a woman who firmly stood her ground and stood up to strong minded Dickens, wrote on many serious subjects, controversial for her time and still managed to have a rich social life in her neighbourhood and far beyond.
For those who wish to dig deeper into epistolary evidence of Mrs Gaskell’s relationship with Dickens, Annette B. Hopkins wrote in 1946 an interesting essay – which I partly summed her above - with many epistolary details, Dickens and Mrs Gaskell, available on Jstor.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815978
Editions, timetable and other preliminary remarksI am using the Norton Critical Edition of 2008 edited by Thomas Recchio, which corresponds to the 1854 Chapman and Hall, Picadilly,edition, but I also have an old Penguin paperback (Penguin Popular Classics) of 1994.
Recent editions – Oxford World Classic paperbacks are generally very helpful as they contain interesting appendixes. For quoting purposes in my posts, I am using the Gutenberg project editions available online. Each chapter has a (spoiler) title, which my editions have not.
Both my editions have explanatory footnotes, spoiler-free. Many of them were written by William Gaskell, who was particularly knowledgeable in Lancashire dialect, as were some of the ditties in epigraphs on top of chapter. Some notes bear the reference (WG) for William Gaskell. Elizabeth’s husband had also taken great care of quoting short passages of classic English plays and verse where those dialectal phrases first appeared.
I would like to advise us to have a copy of the Bible at hand. Classic authors, and particularly Mrs Gaskell, like to quote (or hint at) Bible verses. Those are mainly identified by footnote references but are better appreciated in their context. What was before, and what comes next may sometimes offer us interesting clues as to what Mrs Gaskell wanted to show. A NIV, New International Version, would do for understanding purposes, but purists aptly prefer the more everlastingly poetic King James Bible which is anyway the one quoted by our writers. As students in German studies, we looked certainly astonished when one of our main lecturers advised us to have a Luther Bible (and Fairy Tales by the Grimm Brothers) at hand – and read it – but experience has taught me how right she was, as the Bible is, both lexically and symbolically speaking, part of the background in literatures of the 19th century.
And, from a more organisational point of view, let me add that the novel has 38 chapters of relatively equal length despite some exceptions.
We will begin on Monday 15 April and read one chapter a day and have a day break after two chapters so that we will have time and space for discussion. This will lead us to 15 June.
Hi everyone! Questions or comments are now welcome!
Thank you for the excellent introductory comments. Ever since I heard of this author, one never mentioned in all of my British lit classes, I’ve wanted to read her books.I intend to follow along, but am already trying to do to much. We’ll see. I’ve loaded the ebook onto my kindle and the audio to my phone.
Thank you Claudia for the wonderful background info. I am familiar with Cranford and Wives and Daughters and look forward to reading Mrs. Gaskell’s first novel. I will be traveling until the 22nd but will have my copy on my kindle with me. I will do my best to keep up with reading along!
I appreciate all your interesting research, Claudia. Elizabeth Gaskell was an amazing woman in spite of having to deal with so much sorrow. I have the book and will try to squeeze it in with my other reading. (I do have some family commitments coming up near the end of the book, but I'll continue to follow your posts.) I read "Wives and Daughters" and the short story, "The Old Nurse's Tale," and enjoyed her writing.
I’ve always wanted to read a Gaskell novel. Very much hoping to read along here. Wonderful introduction Claudia. Thank you!
Thank you Kathleen, Lori, Connie and Bridget and of course Jean in the background!I confess that I have not (yet) read Cranford, nor her short stories, but I have read Ruth, North and South, Sylvia's Lovers and Wives and Daughters.
Mary Barton is a very powerful novel!
Let's imagine Mrs Gaskell in her kitchen, adding salt to a stew on the stove, checking her daughters' homework, keeping a watchful eye on the youngest and writing her drafts on the corner of a table!
Claudia wrote: "Editions, timetable and other preliminary remarksI am using the Norton Critical Edition of 2008 edited by Thomas Recchio, which corresponds to the 1854 Chapman and Hall, Picadilly,edition, but I ..."
I definitely second the Norton critical edition; it was so helpful with all of the unique vocabulary-from-the-era as well as background information regarding the Northern strikes.
I’ve only read Cranford, which I really enjoyed, but I have planned to read more of Gaskell. I don’t have the Norton edition but I have a kindle edition on hand and hope to keep up with the reading. I love the chapter a day schedule. Now I will need to return and complete reading your wonderful introduction. Thanks for all of the information.
I also have only read Cranford. I started reading Wives and Daughters but dropped it, wishing to finish Mary Barton and North and South before I read it. I will be using the Oxford edition and referring to a Penguin edition for further notes. I also will be listening to Juliet Stevenson's narration on audiobook. Claudia ahs already excited me with her posting of all the scholarly notes so I am looking forward to the 15th.
Mod
😊😊
Thank you all, now let's move on as someone in Bleak House told Jo!
Chapter 1Before meeting with characters, we are taken on a walk in nature in the early days of May. On a holiday afternoon, two friendly working-class families are meeting and enjoying a short-lived rest.
The Bartons and the Wilsons share mainly material concerns. Mrs Mary Barton's sister Esther, has just disappeared without a trace, while Mrs Barton is about to give birth. Mrs Wilson, the mother of three boys, including two infant twins, tries to comfort her.
John Barton is described first: he is a Manchester-born man of average height, of working-class origin and very modest, whose face bears the scars of past hardship. With his "earnest enthusiasm", he is likely to oscillate between good and evil. But, says the narrator, when we find him out for a walk with his wife and child, he is more than willing to oblige anyone who asks him for anything. His pregnant wife, Mary, is a beautiful woman - but her face is now puffy and red from uncontrollable weeping. She has the complexion of a country girl, with rosy, full cheeks. Her daughter Mary is thirteen, but already Jem Wilson, the son of her friends, kisses her on the cheek to show his affection. Mary responds with a slap.
The Wilsons are older, and Mr Wilson is calmer in manner and speech than John Barton. Mrs Wilson looks frail, carrying her feeble and pale twin babies.
Two themes emerge in the conversation between the two men: the disappearance of Mrs Barton's sister Esther, which deeply affects Mrs Barton and worries John, and John's strong opinions about rich and poor. The mention of Esther lifts the veil on Esther's youthful beauty and independent manners, which John fears might rub off on Mary, “a bonny lassie of thirteen”, who seems to have inherited much of her aunt's beauty and character.
While John rages about the rich not understanding the problems of the poor, Mr Wilson talks about his sister Alice, who could help Mary in the last three weeks of her pregnancy, if needed. Alice lives in a cellar flat under a building near the Bartons'. A washerwoman by day, she is happy to come to the aid of the humblest and the sick, offering to look after them and sit up at night. “there's none more ready to help with heart or hand than she is. Though she may have done a hard day's wash, there's not a child ill within the street but Alice goes to offer to sit up, and does sit up too, though may be she's to be at her work by six next morning."
In spite of the subtitle “A Tale of Manchester Life”, this chapter takes us to a still bucolic and pastoral scenery apparently unaffected by Manchester smokes, a happy refuge from everyday worries and concerns.The novel begins with one of these happy, almost idyllic moments, in pleasant meadows not far from the town, the destination of Sunday walks and holidays. A pastoral scene, the scents, the sounds, the cries of children, the conversations of young people and the colours of a beautiful month of May invite all to rest and relax.
The Green Hey Fields are situated directly south of the then more limited town area of Manchester, in a convenient walking distance for those who work in mills. These grassy areas are considered a slice of countryside by those who resided in the heart of the bustling city. Unlike fast growing Manchester, Green Heys remains untouched for now. It offers walking paths, the soothing sounds of nature, and a haven of peace for those seeking respite from relentless, loud, and often harsh city life. Green Heys provided a refuge—a place where time seemed to slow down. Amidst acres of landscape, people experienced a rare sense of freedom and comfort.
There is a little garden, described in a nearly Goethean way. It reminded me of some poems by Goethe we learnt at school, and much of Werther seeking refuge from his sorrows in nature. However, the flurry of herbs, flowers and scents may also well evoke Milton and his Paradise Lost and, aptly, the Garden of Eden before the Fall, an abundance available for all, no matter who they are. The garden is “crowded with a medley of old-fashioned herbs and flowers, planted long ago, when the garden was the only druggist's shop within reach, and allowed to grow in scrambling and wild luxuriance—roses, lavender, sage, balm (for tea), rosemary, pinks and wallflowers, onions and jessamine, in most republican and indiscriminate order.”
However, as soon as we meet the first characters, some of the worries that we thought were far away become very real when John Barton shares his concerns with Mr Wilson. The first impression of false serenity is reinforced by the description of the protagonists: a worried John Barton, his wife who cannot stop crying, Mrs Wilson and her twins, so frail and fragile. They all seem so far from a paradisiacal happiness that they cannot even enjoy their day off. This paradise is also shattered by a remark John Barton makes about his daughter “I had rather see her earn her bread by the sweat of her brow…”, which leads us directly to God’s words in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:19) after the Fall.
We are immediately plunged into a social and moral issue when John Barton evokes the relationship between the poor and the “gentlefolk”: “If I am sick do they come to nurse me?” asks he, as a reminder of Matthew 25:36. He mentions his son Tom, who has died. “It is the poor, and the poor only, as does such things to the poor”, states Mr Barton when his friend – and former neighbour, who has – unfortunately for the Bartons - moved to another area of Manchester – mentions his sister Alice’s generosity and self-forgetfulness.We feel that there is an underlying sorrow – the cruel loss of a child, and a deep frustration brooding in John Barton, whose world is clearly divided in two spheres:
“We pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds.”
Is John to be comforted by the outcome of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-26? Is that so simple? Is John Barton’s faith strong enough to help him overcome future obstacles?
Let’s fasten our belts, as all the seeds of the novel and of its characters are sown in this chapter and the next one, as two crucial but nevertheless related themes are emerging: the mystery around Esther’s disappearance – an immediately gripping plot element - in the heavy context of the social condition of working classes during the Industrial Revolution in England.
I am excited about your comments!
Thank you for your wonderful introduction to Chapter I, Claudia. Gaskell is showing us an idyllic pastoral scene full of natural beauty. But there are problems under the surface shown by Mary Barton's tears about the disappearance of Esther, the impending birth of Mary's baby, the frail look of the Wilson twins, and the death of the Barton's son.Nature gives and nature takes away. Will there be enough food to nurture these babies and enough fuel to keep their homes warm for the frail infants? Elizabeth Gaskell seems to be drawing on her personal experience with the heartbreaking deaths of her children. The author gave us a lot of information to quickly draw us into the story, and care about outcomes of the characters.
I very much enjoyed this first chapter. I like the cadence and flow of her writing. Her descriptions are wonderful, like the ones Claudia referenced.I wonder what John Barton would sound like in real life. I picture him being rather intense to listen to. A forceful man with lots of opinions. Mr. Wilson is very patient.
I'm so curious about Esther. A wonderful plot element to introduce in the first chapter. When John Barton relays that Esther asked her niece, Mary, "what should you think if I sent for you some day and made a lady of you", that tells us so much about Esther and I wonder if its foreshadowing of things to come. Esther wants something better for life. I think John Barton wants that too, but maybe he feels like there is no way out for him.
Claudia, thank you for all the introductory information and the wonderful chapter summary. I enjoyed this first chapter. It's atmospheric, descriptive, lively and gives us warm characters that we instantly care for.
In her description of the town and country, Gaskell shows the ever present need for nature ("....deafened with the nois of tongues and engines, may come to listen wahile to the delicious sounds of rural life"). One lives in a town for the work but one's soul comes to the country to find rest and peace.
However, the number of people coming to the country for this peace are so many that the countryside is bustling with people and becomes "a crowded, halting place".
There's no place to truly be alone and in Nature's quiet.
The mystery of Esther is intriguing. So.....did she leave to go to a larger city and make her fortune or was she entices by a mystery man?
I agree with Bridget that this addition is a wonderful plot line to include in the first pages of this book.
John's description of being "below the middle size", "his wan colourless face" and his looking "stunted" speak volumes on his hard life, poor nutrition and long work hours in a factory or workshop where he doesn't see the sun.
I again touch on something Bridget commented on. John, I feel, would like a better life but cannot see how that could come to be and, therefore, is determined that his daughter (and the coming child) are content with their lot and not have dreams of being made a lady. Such dreams could lead to being discontented with the life one is born into.
Thank you all, and Connie, Bridget and Petra for your great comments on Chapter 1.I agree with you all, Elizabeth Gaskell's style is fluid and powerful. Esther's mysterious disappearance is a perfect way of captivating us from the start.
Great point from Petra (and Bridget):
I again touch on something Bridget commented on. John, I feel, would like a better life but cannot see how that could come to be and, therefore, is determined that his daughter (and the coming child) are content with their lot and not have dreams of being made a lady. Such dreams could lead to being discontented with the life one is born into.
Chapter 2 introduces us to the Bartons' home, which is simple and modest, yet somehow cosy. The narrative delights in taking stock of the furniture, curtains, crockery, and furnishings, however limited, while Mrs Barton asks her daughter to run some essential errands so that they can offer the Wilsons a proper tea. The Wilsons are thoughtful enough to pretend not to hear the instructions of the Barton parents, who are determined to entertain their friends, and ask daughter Mary to fetch Alice Wilson. Again, the narrative voice describes Alice's precarious and unhealthy home in detail, but dwells on the impeccable cleanliness of the room she occupies.
Mrs Gaskell subtly sets the scene for the story: coming back from the countryside, the Bartons and the Wilsons are walking through courtyards in the middle of blocks of flats, clotheslines strung between houses, simple flats with varying degrees of light, or dark abodes like Alice's cellar. Alice is content with this more than modest flat and does her utmost to keep the damp and dark premises as tidy as possible.
The two families are having a nice tea together, but Alice’s toast “to the absent friends” spoils the convivial atmosphere. The closing lines of the chapter show Alice’s humility when she apologises for her “unlucky toast of sentiments” and emotionally welcomes Mrs Barton’s forgiveness.
PrecariousnessWe quickly understand that we are entering a context of precariousness and worries: Mrs Barton is very emotional, first of all because of her sister’s recent disappearance, remained unexplained despite of all research. But her emotions may also well be heightened by pregnancy hormones. John is most preoccupied by his family's material needs and the future birth. The Wilsons seem better off: George seems to be a practical man, but his wife is visibly exhausted by the recent birth of the twins who are described as not quite healthy. We also see that the Wilson carry their babies and walk to the Ancoats, the city area where they have just moved. This means that they have no pram for the twins, nor enough items for them, as they borrow a shawl from Mrs Barton. All the mentioned details: a limited number of teacups, fire and candles, etc reinforce the idea of precariousness.
Nothing here is innocent, for everything we learn in these two introductory chapters sows the seeds of the plot to be soon taking shape. The closing lines of the chapter have a slightly ominous tone.
A Manchester specialWhen she writes Mary Barton, Mrs Gaskell has an in-depth knowledge of the urban environment, not least through her Unitarian background and acquaintance with many people involved in Unitarian relief societies and organisations of social help. More realistically, before moving to Plymouth Grove, she has been living in Upper Rumford Street while she wrote Mary Barton and in Dover Street before, both in walking distance from the places she mentions in the novel. She had been often seen walking with her husband – who is a pastor at Cross Street Chapel but also a teacher and lecturer - through the “unfinished streets” and the crowded courts mostly for ministering purposes, wearing rubber shoes.
The once minor Lancastrian town has been growing over the past decades to a pre-eminent industrial metropolis, from 180 000 inhabitants in 1832 – when the Gaskells arrive to Manchester, to 400 000 inhabitants in 1845 – when Friedrich Engels publishes The Condition of the Working Classes in England, and when Elizabeth Gaskell is writing Mary Barton.
The Industrial Revolution began in 1764 with the Spinning Jenny, a multi-spindle spinning frame invented by James Hargreaves in Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire and the water-powered cotton mills in the small adjacent valleys which enjoyed a damp climate. Increasingly large quantities of cotton are being shipped to Liverpool and forwarded to Manchester. However, watt steam engines begin to operate the machinery of mills, helping a rapid spread of cotton mills through Manchester, and concentrate derivative activities around them: bleach, textile printing works, foundries, engineering workshops and factories.
A huge concentration of mills in the fast-growing metropolis offers employment to thousands of workers from the agricultural districts. We understand that Mrs Barton, described with something of the freshness of a country girl comes from a village outside, while Alice – industrious and particularly knowledgeable in simples and medicinal plants and fond of long walks in the suburban countryside collecting her seasonal herbs - and George Wilson, who is eating Cumberland Ham for tea, presented as a treat by Mrs Barton, come from the eponymous agricultural area bearing the name of a historic county, covering a part of northern Lancashire and of the Lake District.
The rural exodus just hinted at so far by Mrs Gaskell is widely corroborated by Friedrich Engels, who flashes back on the human geography of the finishing 18th century. He stresses that weavers were, in the old days, able to work in their home-workshops, rent a small surface of land according to their means, grow vegetables and breed a few farm animals which produced basic food, and provide for the needs of their families in a healthy background.
Now those impoverished weavers have left their native villages or small towns and are working in the fast-growing, tentacular and crowded city, trying to meet their material needs with their wages. Mrs Gaskell shows us how Mrs Barton is sending her daughter out for a few essentials for tea, eggs, ham, milk, and an extra treat of rum “to warm tea”, calculating every penny to make it do. We also see that the urban environment is far from being pleasant and healthy: crowded “unfinished” streets without any proper sanitation and plumbing system, labyrinths of courts and backyards, people living in “back-to-back houses” and even cellar flats as Alice’s – which implies a dose of insecurity – boys throwing stones on cellar windows, lack of light, dampness.
We see that the Wilsons have recently moved to the Ancoats in the northern part of the city centre. Its name comes from an old English phrase “the Old Cottages” in the Middle Ages. As a cradle for the Industrial Revolution, the Ancoats is historically called the “first industrial suburb in the world.” It has been the most densely populated area in the town since 1815. Just like other such former industrial suburbs of that era in Europe, it has now become a gentrified area.
I am looking forward to your comments and will post on Chapter 3 on Thursday 18 April!
With Manchester more than doubling in just over 20 years, there must be a housing crunch. That makes appropriate housing limited and more expensive.
Claudia, you touched on something I was going to comment on: the unfinished and confusing new lanes that the group walked through on their way home. These unfinished streets indicate vast urban expansion and a large growth of the town. Was there a sanitation system at the this time? Weren't ditches and gullies of running water, etc common and the only sanitation available? I am probably wrong in thinking that there wasn't a system beyond the ditches in front of houses. When I read this section, I didn't give it a second thought, thinking this was normal for the time.
The Barton house sounds cozy and snug. They are pinching their pennies, as shown by Mary Barton's careful counting of the money, but their home is safe, warm and comfortable. They are one of the lucky families, in terms of security.
Alice's home reminded me of my younger days when I was first on my own. It was safe and warm but not the best since affordability for the young is limited.
I love that Alice collects plants for old home-remedies to help people when they get ill. She's a warm and caring person, it seems.
Gaskell is setting a warm and friendly scene by describing these families and their homes......yet, she ends the chapter with an edge of foreboding and darkness. "....as Alice reviewed that evening in her after life, did she bless Mary Barton for thes kind and thoughtful words" sound ominous to me, as if Alice won't have such kindness in her future. Fingers crossed that this is not so.
I noticed the mention of the ditch or gully down the middle of the road between the houses. This was meant for all waste water, slops, etc from each residence. I was a little surprised at this. Were outhouses a late 19th century addition?
Thanks Claudia for your introduction and insights into Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester at this time. Chapter 2 seemed to be going along so smoothly until Alice's toast to absent friends.
I think you have summed everything up well with the word precarious. One senses things are going to break soon.
Petra wrote: "Claudia, you touched on something I was going to comment on: the unfinished and confusing new lanes that the group walked through on their way home. These unfinished streets indicate vast urban exp..."Housing conditions were indeed like this, Petra and Sue. As Kathleen mentioned, there was a housing crisis as new housing could not meet the increasing needs of a rapidly growing working population. Sanitation was a problem in the 1830s and was still not solved in the 1840s, as Friedrich Engels described in 1845, which corroborates Mrs Gaskell's descriptions.
Of course there were better areas, but workers could not afford to live there.
This precariousness was more visible in Manchester because it was the first and biggest industrial city of that time in all Europe.
But Engels studied the working classes in other cities and saw similar conditions elsewhere in Britain. Preston, Sheffield, Glasgow, etc. experienced the same rapid industrial development, the same overcrowded areas where every inch was rented, where families were large and sanitary conditions poor.
I have planned to return to this subject later at some point!
Thanks Claudia for the detailed summaries and added commentary. I am enjoying this more than my last Gaskell. The pace is fairly quick and she has a number of things going on in the novel to stimulate us already. If I am not careful, I will miss things. One bit worth commenting on is how she is portraying the class differences and doing so mostly through John's eyes. For those that just read The Village Coquettes, this theme was also present in that play but I felt Dickens let the gentry off a little easy in that play. I am curious how Gaskell will do things. Criticism was surely like walking on eggshells at the time given the class structure and also the not too distant French revolution.
Yes Stephen, you aptly pointed out that we already feel in the first two chapters that an equilibrium is about to break down."One bit worth commenting on is how she is portraying the class differences and doing so mostly through John's eyes." Great point, Sam!
Chapter 3In the same night, in contrast to the pleasant walk of two families to an idyllic spot in the countryside and a modest, but warm high tea with friends, John Barton and his daughter Mary are experiencing a terrible and shocking disaster.
Unexpectedly, Mrs Barton goes into labour that very night. She suffers terribly, so John goes to fetch the doctor while their daughter Mary stays with her mother. Unfortunately, the doctor does not arrive in time and Mrs Barton dies with the unborn child. There is nothing to be done, so a neighbour who had been called for help earlier, and Mary, now carry out the funeral washing and dressing the body. Father and daughter are stunned, unable to process what has happened. They are now an incomplete family, widowed and orphaned, and still grieving the death of little Tom and shocked by the disappearance of Esther a few days earlier. John and his daughter Mary are united in the same grief and forever scarred by these losses.
“…she heard the sobs of her father's grief; and quickly, quietly, stealing down the steps, she knelt by him, and kissed his hand. He took no notice at first, for his burst of grief would not be controlled. But when her shriller sobs, her terrified cries (which she could not repress), rose upon his ear, he checked himself.”
"Child, we must be all to one another, now she is gone," whispered he.”
We are given a very realistic description of everything surrounding this unexpected death: daughter Mary's grief and incomprehension, but also John Barton's sorrow and simultaneous reminiscences of happy days, his courtship of Mary, a pearl necklace offered but kept in a drawer to be given to their daughter later, the neighbour's "kindly meant- words", “a text of comfort that fell on a deafened ear”, and the unwashed teacups and plates, now sad remnants of the day before in the Wilsons' company. John slowly awakens from this nightmare and concentrates on material details. The funeral will be arranged. John needs to get back to work as soon as possible to make up for the 'extravagances' of the day before. We now see how bad the situation is, financially and emotionally.
We are told that this is definitely a pivotal event in the life of John Barton, a trauma that triggers traumatic reminiscences of events happened before, but that he is from now on a “deeply changed man”. His relationship to his daughter has changed too, as Mary overtakes the running of their home in the course of the years following the death of Mrs Barton. Mary has suddenly become an adult.
“One of the good influences over John Barton's life had departed that night. One of the ties which bound him down to the gentle humanities of earth was loosened, and henceforward the neighbours all remarked he was a changed man. His gloom and his sternness became habitual instead of occasional. He was more obstinate. But never to Mary. Between the father and the daughter there existed in full force that mysterious bond which unites those who have been loved by one who is now dead and gone.”
All the frustrations John Barton voiced in his recent conversation with George Wilson are now concretely emerging. John has become active in clubs and trade-unions who gather workers who are fighting for their rights in the context of a difficult economic situation. Mary is little aware of all this.
The narrative voice now paints a vivid picture of the situation of the workers, and of John, whose indignation and desire to fight for the workers' cause has been ignited by the death of his wife and their unborn child. It has also reopened the raw wounds of little Tom's death. Even though John had "borne all injustice without complaint", his son's death from scarlet fever was the worst calamity a parent could endure. John Barton single-handedly embodies Manchester, the industrial metropolis and the growing working class. He is all the broken, tired men who don't get enough to eat, who don't enjoy a watertight roof and a well-heated, well-lit home. He is the sickly children and anaemic women who die prematurely, and the little ones who suffer injustice and hunger from the moment they are born.
John had been born into a family of labourers. His mother has died of want and exhaustion. John himself had been a good and regular worker until an economic crisis caused many to get laid off. The Bartons' financial situation began to deteriorate. When their son Tom fell ill, they could not afford to feed him properly, nor could they afford to put food on the table. John went from factory to factory looking for work, but the depression was deep, and he could find no work, nor were shopkeepers willing to grant him credit anymore. Just as he was looking at a cornucopia of appetising food in a shop window, he saw his former master's wife going out while a worker was carrying loads of food for a party to her carriage. When John returned home in a very frustrated and indignant state of mind, little Tom had died.
While John, ignited by “hoards of vengeance” is now being a trade-union leader and a Chartist, Mary is growing up wonderfully and "full of spirits".
He thinks about Mary's future. He does not want her to work in a factory, nor does she want to go into service. Mary is used to her independence since her mother's death, but she is also aware of her beauty.
Is there not an atavistic shadow of her mysterious Aunt Esther hanging over her with her promise to make a lady of her? Is Mary going to follow in Esther’s footsteps? Mary wants to become a seamstress, which seems to her like opening the gates to another world of “ladies”, the realm of beauty.
After some difficulties and John Barton's discouragement, Mary finds an apprenticeship with Miss Simmonds, a seamstress, “in a respectable little street leading off Ardwick Green”. She is now sixteen years old.
StorytellingThese few opening chapters show us how deeply we are already plunged into a story.
Jenny Uglow (Author), in Elizabeth Gaskell : A Habit of Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell, mentioned a letter from Mrs Gaskell to Mary Green in January 1853. “I did feel as if I had something to say about it that I must say, and you know I can tell stories better than any other way of expressing myself.”
Mrs Gaskell was little inclined to talk about her private life. She actually wrote very little about her deceased son William, but she expressed her distress as if by proxy when she described the emotions and the distress of John Barton after the death of little Tom.
We have already noticed how the objective narrative voice is repeatedly interrupted by a few discreet interventions by the narrator in the text, a few "I's", but also a few "you's". The reader is invited to be a witness to the story. This has perhaps been more criticised by modern readers, but it is simply Mrs Gaskell's way of telling a story and expressing herself.
You will have noticed, as I have, that her tone is dramatically serious. Indeed, the story of Mary and John Barton is a serious story. There is no Dickensian sarcasm, nor any light irony to break up the tension, as there is in Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family or The Magic Mountain for example.
I think everybody will also have noticed the richness and accuracy of her descriptions, which is indeed part of efficient storytelling. A cornucopia of wild flowers and field plants, a flurry of appetising food in a shopwindow, but also an in-depth analysis of the small but poignant things that surrounded Mrs Barton's death. John's feelings and small worries about the unwashed dishes of the day before, the reminiscence of his courtship, the necklace in a drawer, Mary's fear of crying too much and upsetting her father, are indeed the stuff of our own tragedies and memories when a loved one dies. These 'little' things show how much Elizabeth Gaskell is a keen observer of human nature and of her own experience.
Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels, a young (Hegelian) philosopher from the Rhineland, born into a family of wealthy Protestant textile industrialists in nowadays Wuppertal, published in 1845 an ethnographic essay entitled The Condition of the Working Class in England at the age of 24. He had been living in Manchester since 1842, working for a company in which his father had shares. He became sentimentally involved with Mary Burns, a strong-minded Irish woman.
As part of a rapidly changing society, confronted with the problems of the time and the plight of the workers, he carried out a vast study for his time and the means at his disposal, which, as he explains in his preface, was the fruit of encounters and immersions in various industrial cities, starting with Manchester.
Engels, eager to know everything, was not content with bookish or superficial research. He devoted his spare time to meeting as many of the people he wanted to write about as possible. The sociological picture he painted is still historically authoritative, as it is one of the best testimonies, if not the best, according to many historians, to the various aspects of poverty, living conditions and the emergence of trade unionism and, the English specificity of the time, Chartism. This document aroused the interest of Karl Marx, who met Engels in Paris that same year. These observations and their meeting led to the most famous Manifesto of the Communist Party The Marx Reader: Manifesto of the Communist Party; Wage Labour & Capital; and Value, Price & Profit, one of the founding works of communist ideology.
Friedrich Engels described the shameful conditions to which the working masses were subjected: unhealthy housing, no sewers in overcrowded districts, dark and damp dwellings.
All this is embodied in this novel by Mrs Gaskell’s descriptions, who herself witnessed this extreme deprivation. The consequences of this situation are many. People feel diminished by the lack of consideration shown to them by the ruling classes, the employers. Weakened also by the lack of sufficient means to ensure their subsistence in decent conditions. Weakened by food shortages, malnutrition, addictions (alcohol and opium) and the threat of death from disease. Finally, these people are weakened because they only survive, “like animals," Engels said, "incapable of making the slightest decision because they are too weak to do so.”
Additionally to Friedrich Engels, who paints a picture that is meticulous, down to the smallest sordid detail, and without complacency, Mrs Gaskell gives life to characters who bring a human dimension, a glimmer of hope, to this unrelenting grey.
The Condition of the Working Class in England, along with the Bible and a box of disposable tissues, is an interesting book to read along Mary Barton. It is available in German Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England and in English on The Gutenberg Project.
I am looking forward to your comments!
Claudia wrote 'These 'little' things show how much Elizabeth Gaskell is a keen observer of human nature and of her own experience.'How true. In talking of the grief of John and Mary I was struck by the use of the word automaton and mecahanically. How true, that part of grief is 'going through the motions'
With the death of mother Mary, such a sad episode and one I didn't see coming.
"Nothing could have saved her--there has been some shock to the system--" and so he went on; but, to unheeding ears, which yet retained his words to ponder on; words not for immediate use in conveying sense, but to be laid by, in the store-house of memory, for a more convenient season.The doctor's words may have John Barton pondering what gave his wife a shock to the system. While it could have been something medical like eclampsia when the blood pressure shoots up, John will probably be thinking about what had his wife in tears the last few days. Was Esther's disappearance the cause of his wife's death?
The sense of mounting pressure in this chapter is well done. John is numb after Mary’s death but gradually becomes both angry and incensed about her death, the loss of his son, Ester’s departure, the seeming invulnerability of the wealthy no matter what might happen to their workers, the closure of mills. He is also gaining power in the workers’ movement. I wonder where this will lead him. I’m glad Mary has a position but the terms seem very onerous. She appears to be fated to be basically an indentured servant for two years.
Indeed Stephen, I too did not see it coming so soon when I first read the novel! Yes Connie Esther's disappearance is certainly a shock for Mary and indeed the doctor's words may be thought-provoking for John Barton.
Thank you all for your comments!
Chapter 4Mary Barton is now 17. Another year has passed and the young girl and her father have come to terms with their loss, although they still mourn Mrs Barton in silence.
"If Mother had lived, she would have helped me".
Mary desperately needs a mother figure around her as she goes through those crucial teenage years.
The world outside has become accustomed to Mrs Barton's absence, having also forgotten Esther's mysterious disappearance four years earlier. We notice that Esther's name is mentioned regularly in the four chapters we have read so far. (May I remind you that Esther means "star" in Persian, but that the Hebrew trinal consonantal root of it, s-t-r, refers to lehastir, to hide).
John is very active in clubs and trade unions, while Mary works as an apprentice in Miss Simmond's millinery workshop - sometimes working overtime, sometimes even at night when orders must be fulfilled.
Mr Barton is good friends with George Wilson, who, unlike John, is not involved in political and social struggles.
His son Jem is now about 22 years old and is described as a decent young man who works for an important engineering company that supplies machinery to Russian and Turkish clients. He is a well-made young man with “a sensible face” that bears the scars of smallpox. George and Jane Wilson would like their eldest son to eventually marry Mary, but she does not welcome such a prospect.
We become better acquainted with Alice, who invites Mary to tea and takes the opportunity to introduce her to her neighbour, Margaret. Their meeting is the result of an ingenious improvisation by Alice, who, like Mary, has just returned from work. Before going home, Mary is invited to visit Mr Legh, Margaret’s grandfather.
Three women: Alice, Margaret and Mary.Alice proves to be a genius at survival, able to create a warm atmosphere out of almost nothing. She tells her guests about her own family: how there were too many mouths to feed at home in Burton, now Burton in Kendal, near Milnthorpe, not far from the sea; how her brother Tom - Will's father - came over to Manchester where there were plenty of jobs; how George came over and wrote that the wages were better than at Milnthorpe and Lancaster; how Alice left her mother with a twinge of heartbreak and went to work in Manchester. How she had so much to do, and had to help everywhere, but was happy to do so, but never managed to visit her parents again, or see her mother alive, or attend her funeral when she died. How money was scarce and she had to work hard to help Tom and his often ill Manx wife and their son Will. How Alice took Will into her care when Tom and his wife died prematurely, and she had to leave the service and work as a laundress.
Alice is selfless and has no family of her own, as Will has gone to sea as a sailor, but she is very hardworking and resourceful, humble and God-fearing, and still hopes to return to Burton one day.
Margaret, the granddaughter of neighbour Job Legh, lives above Alice's basement flat, "unhealthy looking" but "sweet-looking", modestly dressed in dark colours, very simple and keenly interested and sympathetic in Alice's family history. We feel her genuine empathy, her selflessness. Invited by Alice to sing a Lancashire ditty, she reveals herself to be very different from what we may have first perceived of her. She lives the song, internalises the pain of "The Oldham Weaver" and lets her own grief shine through.
“Margaret, with fixed eye, and earnest, dreamy look, seemed to become more and more absorbed in realising to herself the woe she had been describing, and which she felt might at that very moment be suffering and hopeless within a short distance of their comparative comfort.
Suddenly she burst forth with all the power of her magnificent voice, as if a prayer from her very heart for all who were in distress, in the grand supplication, "Lord, remember David."
And Mary Barton? At the start of this modest tea party at Alice's, she seems almost out of place. She has quickly gone home to put on her most flattering clothes, for she "likes to make an impression". She did indeed "manage to impress poor, gentle Margaret". But from my own experience – my mother once worked as a seamstress with Dior in Paris but remained elegant all her life - I know that seamstresses value elegance even when elegance and chic are not necessarily required, and may appear out of place.
A second characteristic of Mary Barton is her almost obsessive reluctance to meet Jem Wilson - she even fears that Alice has organised her tea for 'match-making' purposes. We are looking forward to learn more.
As Alice unfolds her memories, Mary feels "glad she had not gone into the service", which is small evidence of egocentrism or shows, at least, that she is not as mature as Margaret. She listens carefully to Alice's story and to her memories but not with quite the same empathy as Margaret. Still, she seems to want to be friends with Margaret, and agrees to visit her.
PovertyWe may be horrified, even shaken, by all the details Mrs Gaskell provides in this chapter. We may recall similar scenes from earlier or later classics, or perhaps from the accounts of great-grandparents who went through hard times, in some of our families. We imagine Dickens's brickmakers in their cottage in
Bleak House.
The big difference in this description of poverty is that Alice has always tried to do her best to help and provide a clean and warm, friendly and decent environment for the people around her. She has no much furniture, but her guests sit, she has almost no tea - she usually drinks herbal tea when alone - but a mistress has given her a small quantity of tea leaves which she is now using to prepare for her guests a proper cuppa. There is not much to offer them, but a few oatcakes, piously preserved in a tin box, which evoke nostalgic memories of her home village in Cumberlandshire. And we also understand that despite her hard material circumstances she took great care of her nephew Will herself. When she invites Margaret to sing, her intention is to entertain Mary with Margaret's beautiful voice and intense singing.
More realistically, Alice's job as a washer is piecework, which is at the same time a hard job, and more precarious than when she was a servant, because she is paid after each task. This never amounts to sums substantial enough to buy much food. She cannot afford much and must be inventive if she wants to survive.
The Oldham WeaverThis song is a Lancashire dialect ditty from the hand weavers' heritage. We can hear a version of it on YouTube. Like other songs in other parts of the world, it has travelled and has several versions. It is both naïve and heartbreaking, telling of hunger, of eating only nettles, of want and extreme poverty. Now we understand why all the bunches of nettles at Alice’s cellar were for. Nettles are indeed a valuable source of vitamins, iron, and various microelements and freely available in our gardens or on lanes.
The sad song, a lament, was written by Joseph Lees of Glowick, near Oldham, after the Napoleonic wars.
Mrs Gaskell, who intervenes in the story, mentions Deborah Travis, a handweaver from Oldham who became a professional singer (and may have inspired her Margaret.)
We see that poor people, hard-working people, have always loved to sing and very often their song, like a psalm, was a prayer - as Augustine of Hippo said, “singing hymns is praying twice”. King David, in fact, composed his Psalms mainly out of his distress or impulses to praise God.
We imagine Margaret living the weaver’s plight. When she sings so intensely, she is also praying.
We are reminded of hard times everywhere, when (to mention but a few) such songs as Kumbaya, or Bulbes (Yiddish, about poor people eating only potatoes in post-World War I Poland), or Kantig ar Baradoz (Hymn of Paradise, Breton, a long church hymn which used to be often sung by peasants working in the fields in Brittany) were spontaneously composed. They told stories of misfortune or were a prayer for mercy or hope for happiness to come.
I will post on chapter 5 on Sunday, 21 April.Now, it is up to you!
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I wrote a post and then lost it 😟 Just adding bits of local knowledge really as I grew up in one of these cities, living there for 19 years, and my mother's family had moved around between them following work for a couple of generations. I'll try to recreate it ...
Claudia has explained how Manchester was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Manchester and Salford were known for their cotton mills. The poverty was terrible at the time of this novel, and there are still pockets of social deprivation in the urban sprawl.
Manchester is in Lancashire, but only 42 miles from Sheffield (the city of steel) and Rotherham in Yorkshire, with Leeds a little further North. Lancashire and Yorkshire have a different accent, different food and are different culturally, despite bordering on each other. Cumberland (historical name) has also been mentioned. This is further North, before you get to Scotland. It merged with Westmoreland to form Cumbria, or colloquially, the Lake District. Again it is totally different, and an area of outstanding natural beauty.
If you need help with the dialect please shout out! For example in Manchester, "clem" means hunger to the point of starvation, but in both Manchester and Sheffield, "starved" means cold (feeling frozen) rather than hungry e.g. you might say "I'm half starved!" going inside again on a cold day.
I’m enjoying this too, Claudia and Jean. In some ways, I find Gaskell’s characters and the descriptions of extreme poverty more realistic than those written by Dickens. Perhaps this is because, at least so far, there hasn’t been any melodrama involved or larger than life figures, or any hints of angelic ones either. The comparison between Margaret and Mary here was interesting and I wonder what will come of Mary’s moment of insight.
Chapter 3John ”was in a club, so that money was provided for the burial.”
Was this a type of insurance or prepaid funeral group? I don’t remember this being mentioned in other Victorian novels.
(Yes, I’m already behind. Life often gets in the way of my reading pleasure.)
Kathleen wrote: "Chapter 3John ”was in a club, so that money was provided for the burial.”
Was this a type of insurance or prepaid funeral group? I don’t remember this being mentioned in other Victorian novels.
..."
I did not yet find any precise resource on this, Kathleen, but I know that many entities existed back then in Manchester and in big industrial cities - Relief societies in religious denominations, mostly Unitarians, but most probably others too -, so that it is not wrong to suppose that such political clubs, very active and wanting to change the world, were also providing help in such circumstances. Members paid a fee to a special fund and received such help for a decent burial.
Bionic Jean wrote: "Just popping in to say how much I appreciate and am enjoying this read, and all your research and extra posts which add so much breadth and insight, thank you Claudia. 😊I wrote a post and then lo..."
Thank you Jean for all this valuable information directly from the field!
Indeed, dialects are interesting as well as accents and pronunciation, that may strongly differ even in small distances! Thanks for the nuance in clemming and starving in Manchester!
Dickensians!
Books mentioned in this topic
The Grapes of Wrath (other topics)Mary Barton (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
Oliver Twist (other topics)
Dombey and Son (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
William Shakespeare (other topics)Charles M. Relyea (other topics)
Charles Dickens (other topics)
Elizabeth Gaskell (other topics)
George Eliot (other topics)
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Here is the thread to discuss Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, which is our Dickensians! group read during 15th April - 15th June.
This read will be hosted by Claudia, a great admirer of Elizabeth Gaskell's work, who will explain how it fits into our "Dramatic Dickens" season.
This thread will cover chapters 1-18.
***Please let Claudia comment first! Thank you.