Mary Barton

First published in 1848, this novel is set among Manchester mill workers in the hungry 1830s and 1840s. John Barton, a carter worn by unemployment and Chartist politics, watches his household fail while his daughter Mary, apprenticed to a dressmaker, is courted by Jem Wilson and tempted by Harry Carson, the mill owner's son. A strike, a murder, and a trial pull the families of mill and cellar into one crisis. The book treats trade, hunger, and the gap between masters and men. It is an industrial social novel, not a tract issued by either side of the conflict.

Bound in image blocked brown cloth. Dark green slipcase.