Mary Barton

Mary Barton is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848. The story is set in the English city of Manchesterbetween 1839 and 1842, and deals with the difficulties faced by the Victorian working class. The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working-class families. John Barton looses his wife and he is left alone to raise his daughter, Mary. Mary takes up work at a dressmaker's and becomes subject to the affections of hard-working Jem Wilson and Harry Carson, son of a wealthy mill owner...