North and South (Gaskell, 1855)

General

prefatory note interesting on her perceived constraint by serialized publication in Household Words and subsequent expansion in volume form
17 desc of M as "so far from regularly beautiful" makes her a sister of Bronte heroines
33 Mr Hale leaving Church ministry -- note v good
- 39 Margaret seems justified in her perception of moving in a fortnight to be quite fast -- when the hell did anything in a Victorian novel happen that quickly?!
66 repeated theme of Margaret's parents being overly reliant on her "genius for management" (60)
76 she "told her mother that she was no longer Peggy the laundry-maid, but MH the lady": class tied to praxis, different activities, even when the same person performs them
- but MH argued there's something essentially ladylike in her through it all
81ff good description of the change in industry, the effect of it on day to day life
109 Mrs Hale "prouder of Frederick standing up against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer" -- the maneuverability within class and ideology, not unlike Mr H's nonconformity (and I'd say Gaskell is at least setting up that genetic link btwn father and son's dispositions)

20 "the well-bound little-read English Classics" in the Helstone parsonage library
23 "proper old Italian binding" on an ed of Dante's paradiso
34 Mr Hale quoting a 17c dissenter to justify leaving ministry
79 Thornton looking round the Hales' drawing room for the first time: "...and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on one table, as if recently put down."
85: Thornton: his labor and education at odds when growing up
113 Mrs Thornton "the classics fine for loiterers" adds a class valence to the value of reading/education as orthogonal to manufacturing respectability

111-2 materiality of Thornton's mill -- the artificial whiteness cross ref with Dickens' "Paper Mill"