Mary Barton

by Elizabeth Gaskell

Overview

About the Author

Gaskell was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on September 29, 1810. Her family lived in Chelsea (now Cheyne Walk.) After her mother died when Gaskell was still a toddler, her father, William, took her to North England to stay with an aunt. He remarried, and didn’t see her again until she was twelve years old, causing her to feel abandoned. At twenty, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister like her father, and moved to 1 Dover Street, Manchester. She had four daughters, and worked as a pastor’s wife among the young girls who labored long hours in the city’s cotton mills. A frequent traveler, the nature of her foreign correspondence reveals that she was a private person – she wanted the letters burned – who was more industrious and organized than passionate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781495446443
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	02/06/2014
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-1865) was an English author who wrote biographies, short stories, and novels. Because her work often depicted the lives of Victorian society, including the individual effects of the Industrial Revolution, Gaskell has impacted the fields of both literature and history. While Gaskell is now a revered author, she was criticized and overlooked during her lifetime, dismissed by other authors and critics because of her gender. However, after her death, Gaskell earned a respected legacy and is credited to have paved the way for feminist movements.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

"Oh! 't is hard, 't is hard to be working
The whole of the live-long day,
When all the neighbours about one
Are off to their jaunts and play.

"There's Richard he carries his baby,
And Mary takes little Jane,
And lovingly they'll be wandering
Through fields and briery lane."

--MANCHESTER SONG.

THERE are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as "Green Heys Fields," through which runs a public footpath to a little village about two miles distant. In spite of these fields being flat, and low, nay, in spite of the want of wood (the great and usual recommendation of level tracts of land), there is a charm about them which strikes even the inhabitant of a mountainous district, who sees and feels the effect of contrast in these commonplace but thoroughly rural fields, with the busy, bustling manufacturing town he left but half-an-hour ago. Here and there an old black and white farmhouse, with its rambling outbuildings, speaks of other times and other occupations than those which now absorb the population of the neighbourhood. Here in their seasons may be seen the country business of haymaking, ploughing, etc., which are such pleasant mysteries for townspeople to watch: and here the artisan, deafened with noise of tongues and engines, may come to listen awhile to the delicious sounds of rural life: the lowing of cattle, the milkmaid's call, the clatter and cackle of poultry in the old farmyards. You cannot wonder, then, that these fields are popular places of resort at every holiday time; and you would not wonder, if you could see, or I properly describe, the charm of one particular style, that it should be, on such occasions, a crowded halting place. Close by it is a deep, clear pond, reflecting in its dark green depths the shadowy trees that bend over it to exclude the sun. The only place where its banks are shelving is on the side next to a rambling farmyard, belonging to one of those old world, gabled, black and white houses I named above, overlooking the field through which the public footpath leads. The porch of this farmhouse is covered by a rose-tree; and the little garden surrounding it is crowded with a medley of old-fashioned herbs and flowers, planted long ago, when the garden was the only druggist's shop within reach, and allowed to grow in scrambling and wild luxuriance - roses, lavender, sage, balm (for tea), rosemary, pinks and wallflowers, onions and jessamine, in most republican and indiscriminate order. This farmhouse and garden are within a hundred yards of the stile of which I spoke, leading from the large pasture field into a smaller one, divided by a hedge of hawthorn and blackthorn; and near this stile, on the further side, there runs a tale that primroses may often be found, and occasionally the blue sweet violet on the grassy hedge bank.

I do not know whether it was on a holiday granted by the masters, or a holiday seized in right of Nature and her beautiful spring time by the workmen, but one afternoon (now ten or a dozen years ago) these fields were much thronged. It was an early May evening - the April of the poets; for heavy showers had fallen all the morning, and the round, soft, white clouds which were blown by a west wind over the dark blue sky, were sometimes varied by one blacker and more threatening. The softness of the day tempted forth the young green leaves, which almost visibly fluttered into life; and the willows, which that morning had had only a brown reflection in the water below, were now of that tender grey-green which blends so delicately with the spring harmony of colours.

Groups of merry and somewhat loud-talking girls, whose ages might range from twelve to twenty, came by with a buoyant step. They were most of them factory girls, and wore the usual out-of-doors dress of that particular class of maidens; namely, a shawl, which at midday or in fine weather was allowed to be merely a shawl, but towards evening if the day was chilly, became a sort of Spanish mantilla or Scotch plaid, and was brought over the head and hung loosely down, or was pinned under the chin in no unpicturesque fashion.

Their faces were not remarkable for beauty; indeed, they were below the average, with one or two exceptions; they had dark hair, neatly and classically arranged, dark eyes, but sallow complexions and irregular features. The only thing to strike a passer-by was an acuteness and intelligence of countenance, which has often been noticed in a manufacturing population.

There were also numbers of boys, or rather young men, rambling among these fields, ready to bandy jokes with any one, and particularly ready to enter into conversation with the girls, who, however, held themselves aloof, not in a shy, but rather in an independent way, assuming an indifferent manner to the noisy wit or obstreperous compliments of the lads. Here and there came a sober, quiet couple, either whispering lovers, or husband and wife, as the case might be; and if the latter, they were seldom unencumbered by an infant, carried for the most part by the father, while occasionally even three or four little toddlers had been carried or dragged thus far, in order that the whole family might enjoy the delicious May afternoon together.

Some time in the course of that afternoon, two working men met with friendly greeting at the stile so often named. One was a thorough specimen of a Manchester man; born of factory workers, and himself bred up in youth, and living in manhood, among the mills. He was below the middle size and slightly made; there was almost a stunted look about him; and his wan, colourless face gave you the idea, that in his childhood he had suffered from the scanty living consequent upon bad times and improvident habits. His features were strongly marked, though not irregular, and their expression was extreme earnestness; resolute either for good or evil, a sort of latent stem enthusiasm. At the time of which I write, the good predominated over the bad in the countenance, and he was one from whom a stranger would have asked a favour with tolerable faith that it would be granted. He was accompanied by his wife, who might, without exaggeration, have been called a lovely woman, although now her face was swollen with crying, and often hidden behind her apron. She had the fresh beauty of the agricultural districts; and somewhat of the deficiency of sense in her countenance, which is likewise characteristic of the rural inhabitants in comparison with the natives of the manufacturing towns. She was far advanced in pregnancy, which perhaps occasioned the overpowering and hysterical nature of her grief. The friend whom they met was more handsome and less sensible-looking than the man I have just described; he seemed hearty and hopeful, and although his age was greater, yet there was far more of youth's buoyancy in his appearance. He was tenderly carrying a baby in arms, while his wife, a delicate, fragile-looking woman, limping in her gait, bore another of the same age; little, feeble twins, inheriting the frail appearance of their mother.

The last-mentioned man was the first to speak, while a sudden look of sympathy dimmed his gladsome face. "Well, John, how goes it with you?" and in a lower voice, he added, "Any news of Esther yet?" Meanwhile the wives greeted each other like old friends, the soft and plaintive voice of the mother of the twins seeming to call forth only fresh sobs from Mrs. Barton.

"Come, women," said John Barton, "you've both walked far enough. My Mary expects to have her bed in three weeks; and as for you, Mrs. Wilson, you know you are but a cranky sort of a body at the best of times." This was said so kindly, that no offence could be taken. "Sit you down here; the grass is well nigh dry by this time; and you're neither of you nesh folk about taking cold. "Stay," he added, with some tenderness, "here's my pocket-handkerchief to spread under you to save the gowns women always think so much on; and now, Mrs. Wilson, give me the baby, I may as well carry him, while you talk and comfort my wife; poor thing, she takes on sadly about Esther."

These arrangements were soon completed; the two women sat down on the blue cotton handkerchiefs of their husbands, and the latter, each carrying a baby, set off for a further walk; but as soon as Barton had turned his back upon his wife, his countenance fell back into an expression of gloom.

"Then you've heard nothing of Esther, poor lass?" asked Wilson.

"No, nor shan't, as I take it. My mind is, she's gone off with somebody. My wife frets and thinks she's drowned herself, but I tell her, folks don't care to put on their best clothes to drown themselves; and Mrs. Bradshaw (where she lodged, you know) says the last time she set eyes on her was last Tuesday, when she came downstairs, dressed in her Sunday gown, and with a new ribbon in her bonnet, and gloves on her hands, like the lady she was so fond of thinking herself."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Mary Barton

Appendix A:
The Composition of the Novel

1. Excerpts from Gaskell’s Letters
2. Parable of Dives and Lazarus

Appendix B:
Contemporary Reviews of the Novel

1. Athenaeum (21 October 1848)
2. Examiner (4 November 1848)
3. Christian Examiner (March 1849)
4. Edinburgh Review (April 1849)
5. Fraser’s Magazine (April 1849)

Appendix C:
Social Commentary on Industrialization

1. Thomas Carlyle, Chapter I, Chartism (1840)
2. “Emigration—Report of the Poor-Law Commissioners on the Subject,” Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal (15 February 1840)
3. Joseph Adshead, Distress in Manchester. Evidence (Tabular and Otherwise) of the State of the Labouring Classes in 1840-42 (1842)
4. Leon Faucher, Manchester in 1844: Its Present Condition and Future Prospects (1844)
5. Ralph Barnes Grindrod, The Slaves of the Needle(1844)
6. Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845)
7. Charles Kingsley, Appeal to the Chartists (12 April 1848)
8. Caroline Norton, Letters to the Mob (1848)
9. Morning Chronicle (Thursday, 1 November 1849)
10. William Rathbone Greg, Employers and Employed (1853)

Appendix D:
Related Fiction and Poetry

1. Thomas Hood, “Song of the Shirt” (1843)
2. Charlotte Brontë, Chapters 8 and 19, Shirley (1849)
3. Charles Dickens, Chapter 4, Hard Times (1854)
4. George Eliot, Chapter 31, Felix Holt (1866)

Appendix E:
Chartism and Free Trade

Select Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The revolution urged by Mary Barton is a revolution in the emotional and mental dispositions of individuals towards each other … a thoroughly idealist enterprise."
—Macdonald Daly

Editorial Reviews

"The notes are remarkable for their clarity and their completeness. Usually I am not fond of introductions, but Professor Wright's essentially historicist rendering of the tale is on the mark."—George Evans Light, Stanford University

"First-rate edition!"—Suzanne Ozment, The Citadel

From the Publisher

"Another splendid edition from Broadview with the usual high standard of helpful footnotes. Among the appendices in this volume are Gaskell's letters about writing the novel; contemporary reviews; essays and reports from the 1840s on industrialization, Chartism, emigration, prostitution and conditions in Manchester; brief selections from related fiction and poetry; and a very intelligible short summary of dates and events that shape the novel's politics."

Sally Mitchell Temple University