Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (Version 2)
Written by Elizabeth Gaskell
Narrated by Tony Foster
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life was Mrs Gaskell's first full-length novel. It was published anonymously in that tumultuous year of political change, 1848 - 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", a classic account of the sufferings of the poor under the factory-system.
Elizabeth Gaskell's 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, writerly 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..." She was, however, determined to portray, in novelistic 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 on to 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.
Certainly the novel features numerous death-scenes, all conveyed with a depth of sympathy that contrasts with the queasy iambics with which Dickens orchestrated the notorious demise of Little Nell. Mrs Gaskell was not, like Dickens, a London-based novelist observing the sufferings of the provincial poor with a journalistic detachment - as evidenced in his own admirable, Lancashire-based novel "Hard Times". Gaskell lived among the people whose attenuated lives she chronicled - and however hesitantly, as a début novelist, she rendered their experience in literary terms, her writing presents us with a true insight into the sufferings of individuals at a point in history when the mass of human beings fell casualty to the forms of economic progress following upon the Industrial Revolution. Most impressively she called into question the political and social cost of creating a resentful proletariat despairing of survival in (to quote Karl Marx) a "heartless world".
Our reader Tony Foster is a resident of Manchester and a near-neighbour of Mrs Gaskell (allowing for their separation in time). His superb narration renders the native speech of her characters with an authenticity which ideally conveys the spirit of this book. A truly moving experience awaits everyone who gives ear to this 'Tale of Manchester Life'.
Summary by Martin Geeson
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) was a British novelist and short-story writer. Her works were Victorian social histories across many strata of society. Her most famous works include Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters.
More audiobooks from Elizabeth Gaskell
North & South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Haunted House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North and South: Premium Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North and South (version 3) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Mary Barton
Related audiobooks
Cranford Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Harrison's Confessions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elizabeth Gaskell: The Short Stories: Right At Last; Sexton's Hero; Hand and Heart; The Old Nurse's Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mary Barton Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBelinda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aurora Floyd Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvelina Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daniel Deronda Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Villette Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shirley Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorth and South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5He Knew He Was Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miss Mackenzie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Life Of Charlotte Brontë Volume 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kept in the Dark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moorland Cottage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cousin Phillis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Caldigate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eustace Diamonds Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ayala's Angel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoctor Thorne Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wives and Daughters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orley Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Lady Ludlow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camilla Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWives and Daughters (solo version) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Castle Richmond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tess of the d'Urbervilles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agnes Grey (dramatic reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
History For You
Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swingtime for Hitler: Goebbels’s Jazzmen, Tokyo Rose, and Propaganda That Carries a Tune Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Mercies: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret History of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mary Magdalene: Women, the Church, and the Great Deception Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An American Marriage: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Mary Barton
4 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderful story and extraordinarily good narration. I can’t believe this narrator did this free on LibriVox. Professional quality.