Tonight, we’ll read the opening to the social novel “North and South,” published in 1854 and written by Elizabeth Gaskell. The novel’s protagonist, Margaret Hale, is forced to leave her home in the tranquil, rural south, to settle with her parents in Milton, a fictional industrial town in the north.  

Elizabeth Gaskell, often referred to as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of Victorian society Her work is of interest to social historians as well as readers of literature.