New Year, New Fallen Woman: Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth Readalong

[BishyBarnyBee]

Following the very successful Madame Bovary readalong, we have decided to explore another woman who refused to be bound by contemporary mores.
So shocking at the time, two of Gaskell's friends burnt their copies.

"Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth (1853) was the first mainstream novel to make a fallen woman its eponymous heroine. It is a remarkable story of love, of the sanctuary and tyranny of the family, and of the consequences of lies and deception, one that lays bare Victorian hypocrisy and sexual double-standards. Shocking to contemporary readers, its radical utopian vision of a pure woman faithfully presented predates Hardy's Tess by nearly forty years."

We will aim for two chapters a week - a weekend chapter and a mid week chapter. If I have time, I'll try and do a ChatGPT chapter summary, but anyone else is welcome to jump in if I haven't got there first.

We start 1st Jan, so if you are up for a bit of Victorian passion, guilt, regret and redemption, sign up here!

I read all Mrs Gaskell's novels in my twenties but haven't picked up much from that period in the last couple of decades. I've downloaded Ruth on Kindle and will read along.

I would love to join this. Have thought about joining previous readalongs but never quite got around to it. I read North and South and Wives and Daughters some years ago.

Love your username @BishyBarnyBee! Am guessing you are from Norfolk? I am too (but currently living somewhere else).

Ooh yes please, I have never read Ruth and also love North and South and Wives and Daughters. Off to buy a copy before my self imposed ‘no new books’ ban.😂

Count me in.

I didn't join in with the Madame Bovary one although I probably should have to see if my opinion had changed since I read it in my teens (I found her spoilt and irritating).

I'm looking forward to this year's read. I enjoyed Cranford and North & South. I haven't read Ruth but it sounds really interesting.

I may have a tangential connection with Norfolk!

Excellent! I was planning to read a “classic” story this year so will start with this one. Will order a copy now.

Book ordered…will try and keep up!

I've bought it for my kindle but found that it's also included in my Audible membership so I have it for back up in case I have a busy week.

Thanks @BishyBarnyBee , I love the thread title!

I have the Penguin edition, which I chose somewhat randomly.

I read Cranford years ago, after watching the BBC adaptation, but otherwise I'm not at all familiar with Gaskell. I'm looking forward to reading.

I'm in, just got my copy from Libby. I've never done a read along before, but this seems a good way to kick off the new year new reading habit.

I love this cover.

Thanks for the audible tip. It's handy to have the audio like you say if it's a busy week.

I'm in, glad to have discovered this thread at the right time. I read North and South a lifetime ago and Cranford two lifetimes ago so must be due to read Mrs Gaskell again. Looking forward to it.

I'm In!

Just downloaded it to my kindle

My copy arrived today.
Am really looking forward to this, thanks BishyBarnyBee!

Well, hello, lovely fellow readers! It's great to see so many sign ups, and I'm really excited about starting. My experience of mumsnet readalongs has been that it's quite a challenge to show up consistently, but I've loved being pushed to tackle books I might not have thought of or was daunted by.

So no worries if life gets in the way and you have to dip in and out. Just keep up as best you can and it's great to have some company along the way.

I've got the Penguin version on Kindle, with an introduction by Angus Easson, previously Emeritus Professor of English at Salford University. His introduction explores themes and plotlines that are definitely spoilers, so my plan is to summarise the biographical notes today to get us warmed up, but leave the analysis for now.

I don't know how consistent I'll be at posting summaries. There aren't any free chapter guides out there and my cunning plan to get chat GPT to do it doesn't work as it can't seem to give me one chapter at a time. So I'll have a stab, but summaries might be intermittent or non- existent depending on how I get on.

Thanks so much Bishy!
I'll back you up with a summary, no worries there.

My cover is an older version of Cornishlizard's. My library doesn't update its stock very often or indeed at all.

Lovely front covers! I'm reading it on Kindle.

Thanks Fuzzy and Bishy. Looking forward.

Introduction Part 1: Angus Easson's notes from the Penguin Edition
Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848 and was an instant success. Set in Manchester, it explored the impact of the Industrial Revolution through the story of a young woman torn between two suitors: a mill worker and a mill owner. Gaskell's husband, Minister at Manchester's Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, encouraged her to write as a diversion after the death of their infant son. (Incidentally, I checked and the first English translation of Engel's Condition of the Working Class in England, the in-depth study of industrial Manchester that inspired Marxism, was published just a year before, in 1847 - I wonder if Gaskell read it, or if she had enough first hand knowledge of conditions from her own work among the poor?)

Gaskell was aware that her second novel would be widely read, and was conscious of the negative response it might meet. She found it challenging to write. A friend reported in 1852 that she was dissatisfied with the last hundred pages "and we are going over it very carefully to take out superfluous epithets and sentences". Gaskell describes how some friends to whom she had to "talk aesthetically" even while "thinking of pickle for pork", "smashed into Ruth in grand style". Easson suggests the anxiety about structure was actually fear arising from the subject matter, but Gaskell was deeply committed "my heart being so full of it", and Charlotte Bronte viewed the novel as combining nobility, practicality, and a high and just purpose.

The book was published in 1853 and as expected, there was much debate as to whether this was a fit subject for a novel. Gaskell wrote that it had "made them talk and think a little on a subject which is so painful it requires all one's bravery not to hide one's head like an ostrich and try...to forget that the evil exists".

She compared the criticism as being like "St Sebastian stuck full of arrows" and just after publication "had a terrible fit of crying all Saturday night at the unkind things people are saying". But as the reviews began to come in, Easson says she was "cheered by the favourable, thoughtful and often lengthy notices Ruth received".

Do you have access to one of the book notes sites? I was wondering about taking a free trial to see how good they are, but I always worry I'll forget to cancel and end up paying for it for evermore.

No @BishyBarnyBee I was just thinking of winging it improvising. Something short and simple to keep us on track.

We'll wing it together!

I think winging it and people popping in with comments will be fine. If there is time for more there is time, if not then it will be fine.

Is thE general consensus that once we get midweek or the weekend that people can post and we should expect spoilers etc? I’m very happy to just not look until I’ve read the chapters.