SOURCE: Guest, Harriet. “The Deep Romance of Manchester: Gaskell's Mary Barton.” In The Regional Novel in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1990, edited by K. D. M. Snell, pp. 78-98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Guest examines Mary Barton as a regional novel.

Living in Manchester

Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton (1848), might seem to be determinedly regionalised or localised: it claims a local character for itself in its sub-title, A Tale of Manchester Life, and in the copious use of Lancashire dialect, supplemented and weighted with explanatory footnotes.¹ Elizabeth Gaskell explained in her Preface that:

Three years ago I became anxious (from circumstances that need not be more fully alluded to) to employ myself in writing a work of fiction. Living in Manchester, but with a deep relish and fond admiration for the country, my first thought was to find a frame-work for my story in...