Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life
Mary Barton is beautiful but has been born poor. Her father fights for the rights of his fellow workers, but Mary wants to make a better life for them both. She rashly decides to reject her lover Jem, a struggling engineer, in the hope of marrying the rich mill-owner's son Henry Carson and...
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Mary Barton is beautiful but has been born poor. Her father fights for the rights of his fellow workers, but Mary wants to make a better life for them both. She rashly decides to reject her lover Jem, a struggling engineer, in the hope of marrying the rich mill-owner's son Henry Carson and securing a safe future. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself hopelessly torn between them. She also discovers an unpleasant truth - one that could bring tragedy upon everyone, and threatens to destroy her.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780141039381 (0141039388)
Publish date: September 1st 2009
Publisher: Penguin
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Novels,
Literature,
European Literature,
British Literature,
Historical Fiction,
Romance,
Classic Literature,
Literary Fiction,
19th Century,
English Literature
This was Elizabeth Gaskell's first book, and is the second book by her which I've read. It's really two books in one - the first, concentrating on John Barton (father of the titular Mary Barton) is a screed about structural inequality and capital versus labor, and the second, a literal courtroom dra...
bookshelves: victorian, autumn-2010, published-1848, play-dramatisation, britain-england, classic Recommended for: BBC7 listeners Read from September 27 to October 22, 2010 0.0% "A cotton weaver's daughter is wooed - and her Aunt goes missing." 09/28/2010 page 2 0.0% "Mary grows up ...
This was Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel and it shows. It's signficantly less assured than her better known works, [b:North and South|156538|North and South|Elizabeth Gaskell|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1349633381s/156538.jpg|1016482], [b:Cranford|182381|Cranford|Elizabeth Gaskell|http://d.gr-asse...
First sentence: “There are some fields near Manchester, well-known to the inhabitants as ‘Green Heys Fields’, though which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant.”P. 99: “It’s not to be forgotten, or forgiven either, by me or many another; but I canna tell of our down-cas...
Just finished MARY BARTON, by Elizabeth Gaskell, first published in 1848 based on events in 1837-42 in Manchester, England. I have the Norton Critical edition (2008), but before I wander through its learned criticism, here are a few thoughts.Wow, what a difference from SHIRLEY. Though both Bronte an...