MARY BARTON 

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 



read by Tony Foster 

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Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life 
By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1310-1865) 

11 Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life' 1 was Mrs. GaskelPs first full- 
length novel, it was published anonymously in that tumultuous year of 
political change, 1S4S - only a few months after the Communist 
Manifesto co-authored by her fellow Manchester-resident,, Friedrich 
Engels. Engels’s experience as agent in his father’s cotton-spinning 
factory motivated him to write "The Condition of the Working Class in England 1 ", a classic account of 
the sufferings of the poor under the factory-system. 

Elizabeth GaskelPs own personal contact with the plight of the poor cotton workers of Lancashire 
also compelled her to a compassionate examination of their lives; but as a middle-class woman, 
married to a Unitarian minister, her approach to her subject took on a more emotionally complex 
significance; influenced by religious faith but also by more personal considerations. 

In the brief preface to the novel, Mrs. Gaskell hints at her initial impulse. The loss of a beloved child 
in infancy led her to seek a therapeutic outlet, but one which left her uncertain of her capacity to 
contextualize her public, writcrly response to the tragedies occurring in the surrounding society of 
Manchester’s poorest classes: '’I know nothing of Political Economy, or the theories of trade,., 11 She 
was, however, determined to portray, in rove I i Stic form, the intimate connection between the 
private experience of her characters and the social forces of her time. The success of the novel led 
her to proclaim her authorship and move onto further works of fiction, which have secured her in 
our times a mounting reputation as one of the leading novelists of the mid-Victorian period. 



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Read by Tony Foster. Total running time: 15:40:56. Book coordinator: Tony Foster. Meta 
coordinator: Bov J Stevens. Proof listener: Martin Geeson 

This recording is in the public domain and may be reproduced, distributed, or modified without; permission. For more 
information nr to volunteer, visit librivox.org. Cuver image is the cover of the edition published by fl. L King (1BS3}. 
Author photo by unknown photographer {c. I860}. Copyright expired in US F Canada, FU and all countries with author's 
life +70 yrs laws. Cover design by Janette Brown. This design is in the public domain. 


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