She was also friends with Charlotte Brontë and after her death, her father, Patrick Brontë, chose Gaskell to write The Life of Charlotte Brontë. She was an accomplished writer, much of her work published in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words including North and South which was originally published as a serial. Gaskell based her depiction of Milton on Manchester, where she lived as the wife of a Unitarian minister. However, their fierce opposition masks a deeper attraction. She clashes with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, who is contemptuous of his workers. Sympathetic to the poor she makes friends among them and develops a fervent sense of social justice. Though at first disgusted by her new surroundings, she witnesses the brutality wrought by the Industrial Revolution and becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers.

When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire and move with her family to the fictional industrial town of Milton in the north of England. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern, and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience.

North and south gaskell novel