North and South

Elizabeth Gaskell's second industrial novel, North and South, is one of her best known works. It has been favorably compared to Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, and some of the complicated relationships have been compared to those in Pride and Prejudice. The Industrial Revolution created an interesting and often volatile dynamic between workers and industrialists, but unlike Mary Barton where she focused entirely on the working class, she has taken a more balanced tone expressing the motivations of both sides in this work.