The Complete Works of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. The main heroine of North and South, Margaret Hale, is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers. There Margaret meets Mr. Thornton, a wealthy cotton mill owner, and dislikes him immediately, but he falls passionately in love with her.