Ruth

• Two of English writer Elizabeth Gaskell’s best-selling books are bound together in this Kindle book: Ruth North and South

Ruth 1953

Ruth, a British orphan girl who works in a sweatshop, is selected to attend a ball to repair torn dresses and meets aristocrat Henry Bellingham. They meet again and form a secret friendship which goes horribly wrong for Ruth.

She is helped by a dissenting minister, but soon discovers she is pregnant.

The novel is a compassionate look at the 'fallen woman' and whether the sinful can be reintegrated into Victorian society.

North and South (1855)

North and South – along with With Wives and Daughters and Cranford – is one of Gaskell's best known novels and produced two television adaptations.

The novel tackles the situation of workers and their relations with industrialists in the fictional town of Milton, northern England and has favourably compared to the Shirley by Gaskell’s friend Charlotte Brontë.

It revolves around Margaret Hale, who settles with her parents in Milton in the throws of the industrial revolution, She clashes with John Thornton, a cotton mill manufacturer, who belongs to the nouveaux riches. The confrontation between her and Mr Thornton is reminiscent of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

About The Author

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810 –1865), referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was a British novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. She was also the first to write a biography of Charlotte Bronte, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, which was published in 1857.

In North and South, Gaskell creates the city of Milton based on Manchester, nicknamed Cottonopolis, where she lived as the wife of a Unitarian pastor. She saw religious dissenters and social reformers, who decried the abject poverty of this industrial region. She described the poor in her writings, showing compassion for the oppressed.

The last section of Wives and Daughters was not finished upon Elizabeth Gaskell’s death and it is believed that Frederick Greenwood (1830 –1909), a journalist and editor, completed the novel.