UNLIMITED Audiobooks and eBooks
Over 40,000 books & works on all major devices
Get ALL YOU CAN for FREE for 30 days!
Mary Barton
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Book Overview:
Mary Barton is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class.
The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working class families. John Barton reveals himself to be a great questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relation between the rich and the poor. He also relates how his sister-in-law Esther has disappeared after she ran away from home.
Soon afterwards Mrs Barton dies, and John is left with his daughter Mary to cope in the harsh world around them. Having already been deeply affected by the loss of his son Tom at a young age, after the death of his wife, Barton tackles depression and begins to involve himself in the Chartist movement connected with the trade unions.
Mary Barton is the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell. The story is set in the English city of Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class.
The novel begins in Manchester, where we are introduced to the Bartons and the Wilsons, two working class families. John Barton reveals himself to be a great questioner of the distribution of wealth and the relation between the rich and the poor. He also relates how his sister-in-law Esther has disappeared after she ran away from home.
Soon afterwards Mrs Barton dies, and John is left with his daughter Mary to cope in the harsh world around them. Having already been deeply affected by the loss of his son Tom at a young age, after the death of his wife, Barton tackles depression and begins to involve himself in the Chartist movement connected with the trade unions.
How does All You Can Books work?
All You Can Books gives you UNLIMITED access to over 40,000 Audiobooks, eBooks, and Foreign Language courses. Download as many audiobooks, ebooks, language audio courses, and language e-workbooks as you want during the FREE trial and it's all yours to keep even if you cancel during the FREE trial. The service works on any major device including computers, smartphones, music players, e-readers, and tablets. You can try the service for FREE for 30 days then it's just $19.99 per month after that. So for the price everyone else charges for just 1 book, we offer you UNLIMITED audio books, e-books and language courses to download and enjoy as you please. No restrictions.
Try now for FREE!

"Love your service - thanks so much for what you do!"
- Customer Cathryn Mazer
"I did not realize that you would have so many audio books I would enjoy"
- Customer Sharon Morrison
"For all my fellow Audio Book & E-Book regulars:
This is about as close to nirvana as I have found!"
- Twitter post from @bobbyekat
Community Reviews
After having read "North and South" quite a long time ago I had forgotten why this woman was a master in storytelling.
Because it seems impossible that a novel written in the classic way, with long sentences and a "stiff" structure with ancient vocabulary and dealing with the pros and conts of the re
This was Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel and it shows. It's signficantly less assured than her better known works, North and South, Cranford and Wives and Daughters. The eponymous heroine is at times annoying (although she grows in stature as the work progresses) and the narrative has a number of th
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It offers an important perspective on the rich/poor divide in Victorian Manchester. It was written for middle class readers who were unaware of the realities of working class life, and it's so interesting to hear the corresponding narrative voice (which, whilst not om
Mary Barton is the very first novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell. Living in the industrial city of Manchester and having firsthand witnessed the poor living condition and suffering of the working class, Gaskell was inspired to write a novel that brings to light their poverty and suffering.
In Mar
Mary Barton is a wonderful failure of a novel, in all of the classic Victorian ways–the love plot is overwrought, the ending is melodramatic, the moralizing is far too heavy, and the epigraphs are obnoxious. But, somehow, in the middle of all those problems, Elizabeth Gaskell manages to capture perf
In the grim industrial city of Manchester, England around the latter part of the decade, of the 1830's, people are actually starving to death, especially the little ones... the poor parents cannot feed... those...Murder follows as naturally as water flows to the lowest level... A love triangle ensue
Mary Barton was an important landmark in 19th century English literature in that , more possibly than even any Charles Dickens novel, it raises awareness of the plight of the poverty stricken English working classes.Unlike most of Dickens work , Elizabeth Gaskell places working class people at the c
Okay, I am turning into a major E. Gaskell fan. I absolutely loved this book. It was her first, and got a bit melodramatic in places, but I think she made it work. "North and South" was definitely better crafted, but this was just as good a story.
Gaskell wrote at the same time as Dickens, Industria
How to Tell if You are in an Elizabeth Gaskell novel:
1. Someone you love just died.
2. You live in an industrial wasteland, which is wrapped in a peculiarly permanent winter.
3. Your father makes terrible decisions. You love him unconditionally.
4. Someone just dropped dead.
5. You believe that starving