Writing during periods of dramatic social change, Maria Edgeworth and Elizabeth Gaskell were both attracted to the idea of radical societal transformation at the same time that their writings express nostalgia for a traditional, paternalistic ruling class. Julie Nash shows how this tension is played out especially through the characters of servants in short fiction and novels such as Edgeworth's "Castle Rackrent", "Belinda", and Helen and Gaskell's "North and South" and "Cranford".
When her father leaves the Church, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. In "North and South", Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.
Cranford is the best-known novel of the 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published in 1851 as a serial in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens.
![Elizabeth Gaskell - Cranford [Unabridged mp3, pdf]](http://englishtips.org/uploads/posts/2010-01/1263071798_cranford.jpg "Elizabeth Gaskell - Cranford [Unabridged mp3, pdf]")
