Mary Barton. A Tale of Manchester Life: Elizabeth Gaskell

`Gaskell`s shocking, moving and contemporary account of the corrosive effects of injustice and poverty` Sunday Telegraph

Mary Barton is the pretty daughter of a factory worker who finds herself dreaming of a better life when the mill-owner`s charming son, Henry, starts to court her. She rejects her childhood friend Jem`s affections in the hope of marrying Henry and escaping from the hard and bitter life that is the fate of the workers, who are resentfully dependent on the callous mill-owners for their livelihoods. But when Henry is shot dead in the street Jem becomes the prime suspect and Mary finds her loyalties tested to the limit.