Margaret Hale, uprooted from the rural south of England to the grim industrial town of Milton, clashes with and gradually comes to understand mill-owner John Thornton amid strikes and social upheaval.
Books mentioned in North and South (6)
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: “it was the Paradise of Dante, in the proper old Italian binding of white vellum and gold”
The Republic by Plato: “We will read Plato's Republic as soon as we have finished Homer.”
A Thousand and One Nights: “the steam-hammer, which was recalling to Mr. Hale some of the wonderful stories of subservient genii in the Arabian Nights”
Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving: “ever since I read the Tales of the Alhambra.”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “One cannot help admiring him, with a mixture of pity in one's admiration, something like what one feels for Don Quixote.”
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “A cast-away lonely as Robinson Crusoe--a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life--nay, even a saint in Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by being spoken of as "a man."”