Elizabeth Gaskell

British novelist who wrote Mary Barton, North and South, Wives and Daughters, and a biography of Charlotte Brontë — depicting the industrial north of England and the clash between industrial capitalism and traditional values with the sympathy born of living in Manchester.

Created the definitive Victorian novel of industrial England's human cost — North and South's account of Margaret Hale's encounter with the industrial north (mill workers, strikes, the self-made manufacturer Thornton) balances genuine sympathy for the industrial poor with understanding of the industrialist's perspective in a way Dickens never managed.