> Skip to content
  • Published: 24 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141974675
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512

Mary Barton

A Tale of Manchester Life





The new paperback series: Penguin English Library

With an essay by Stephen Gill.

"Don't think to come over me with th' old tale, that the rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know. We're their slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds ... with a great gulf betwixt us"

Mary Barton is beautiful but has been born poor. Her father fights for the rights of his fellow workers, but Mary wants to make a better life for them both. She rashly decides to reject her lover Jem, a struggling engineer, in the hope of marrying the rich mill-owner's son Henry Carson and securing a safe future. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself hopelessly torn between them. She also discovers an unpleasant truth - one that could bring tragedy upon everyone, and threatens to destroy her.

  • Published: 24 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141974675
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512

Other books in the series

Emma
Persuasion
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

Also by Elizabeth Gaskell

See all
penguin pop image
penguin pop image