North and South follows Naxos AudioBooks’ widely-praised recording of Cranford (2008), transporting the listener to the heart of Victorian England by vividly delineating the social landscape and an unlikely romance which flourishes within it. Saddened to be leaving behind the sophistication of the South, Margaret Hale approaches her new life in the unrefined, industrialised North with dread. Appalled at the poverty, struggle and mean conditions that surround her, her revulsion particularly centers on the factory owner John Thornton. Yet, when circumstances conspire to bring them together, Margaret begins to see past crude stereotypes. Conjuring up a fantastic sense of time and place, Gaskell ’s novel of romantic suspense and changing perceptions is a sheer delight in the hands of Manchester-born reader Clare Wille.   2010 marks the 200 th anniversary of Elizabeth Gaskell ’s birth and Naxos AudioBooks proudly embarks on a series of unabridged and abridged recordings of her major novels.   15 CDs