Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (review)

274 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 substantially added to the impressive body of work produced over a distinguished scholarly career. (MARJORIE STONE) Elizabeth Gaskell. Mary Barton. Edited by Jennifer Foster Broadview Press. 590. $12.95 Jennifer Foster=s edition of Mary Barton, with its useful footnotes and appendices, is an excellent text for the classroom. The footnotes are sufficiently comprehensive that students will never be left wondering about a term, a historical event, or a literary reference. In a fairly brief introduction, which provides a short history of critical positions on the novel, Foster sets out some of the key issues and situates the novel within a broader genre of social problem novels. In particular, she points readers to one of the key questions faced by any reader of Mary Barton B what solution does the novel offer to the social problem it presents? Foster suggests that the novel does offer a solution, although perhaps an unworkable one, in the form of >increased understanding and sympathy, combined with a recognition of the primacy of domestic relationships over political alliances.= Although the introduction does not provide any new insights, it is adequate for its purposes. The strength of the text, however, lies in the appendices, which allow readers to grapple with the issues Foster mentions in her introduction. The appendices contain much of the usual material one has come to expect in a Broadview edition; in four sections there are appropriate letters from Gaskell, contemporary reviews of the novel, social commentary on the topics in the novel, and other fictional treatments of the concerns of the novel. Gaskell=s letters are chosen in order to reveal the controversial nature of her position. The selection of reviews is particularly provocative, since it displays a range of opinions on Gaskell=s stance. While most of the reviews are sympathetic to Gaskell=s depiction of the plight of the poor, that by W.R. Greg in the Edinburgh Review chastises the novel for containing representations that are >inaccurate and full of harm.= Greg claims that an ordinary working family can make ,100 a year and blames the improvidence of the workers for their condition. This argument illustrates the challenge that Gaskell=s depiction of the poor faced in its day. In the section entitled >Social Commentary on Industrialization,= there is another article by Greg. His position is also supported by an excerpt from the Morning Chronicle in which the writer claims that factory toil is >a species of labour light and easy of performance ... allowing frequent periods of rest.= This writer blames poor domestic habits for the difficult lives of the poor. The reader is also offered a defence of hierarchy by Caroline Norton in an excerpt from Letters to the Mob. Such selections enable the newcomer to the period to see the hostility that existed towards the claims of the poor. HUMANITIES 275 The section >Social Commentary on Industrialization= also provides a variety of excerpts that support Gaskell=s sympathetic account of the poverty of Manchester=s labourers. For instance, Foster includes Joseph Adshead=s report, Distress in Manchester. Evidence (Tabular and otherwise) of the State of the Labouring Classes in 1840B42, with its depiction of the squalor in which Manchester=s poor lived. Reading this report enables an assessment of Greg=s claims. Extracts from both Friedrich Engels and Charles Kingsley on Chartism provide differing views on means of obtaining social change. Further, the appendices offer background on a variety of topics in the novel such as prostitution, opium, the needle trade, and emigration. Reading through these various extracts provides a fuller understanding of the debate in the period over the condition of the poor and the issues Gaskell faced in writing the novel. The final section in the appendices contains other contemporary literary expressions of the social problems dealt with by Gaskell. Thomas Hood=s >Song of the Shirt= is an apt inclusion, as are excerpts from Hard Times, Felix Holt, and Shirley. One thing that might be helpful to students would be the inclusion in the bibliography of journal articles on Mary Barton. The bibliography only includes books, and much important work is found in articles, which are often more accessible...