VINTAGE CLASSICS : MARY BARTON PB B FORMAT – ELIZABETH GASKELL

Gaskell s shocking, moving and contemporary account of the corrosive effects of injustice and poverty Sunday Telegraph Mary Barton is the pretty daughter of a factory worker who finds herself dreaming of a better life when the mill-owner s charming son, Henry, starts to court her. She rejects her childhood friend Jem s affections in the hope of marrying Henry and escaping from the hard and bitter life that is the fate of the workers, who are resentfully dependent on the callous mill-owners for their livelihoods. But when Henry is shot dead in the street Jem becomes the prime suspect and Mary finds her loyalties tested to the limit.