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"A great engine for good": the industry of fiction in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South.

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From: Studies in the Novel
Date: 20021222
Author:Starr, Elizabeth

Written in an age that evaded mundane representations of both women's and literary work, Elizabeth Gaskell's social-problem novels express discomfort with commercial and competitive enterprises. By the end of Mary Barton, the novel's most public and commercial woman--the prostitute Esther--lies buried in an unmarked grave with the hapless John Barton; in the middle-class home of the Hales in North and South, work and payment for services rendered often go unmentioned. Yet Gaskell's fiction also embraces commerce and conflict. As factory workers confront their employers and ...

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