North and South. Krenford. Gaskell E.

Along with Charles Dickens, William Tekkeerey and Charlotte Bronte, the writer of the Victorian era of the Elizabeth Gaskell belongs to the brilliant galaxy of the English novelists. In 1832, she married and moved to Manchester, having spent the rest of her life in him. This industrial city, according to the writer herself, seemed to her "hot, terrible, smoky, vile Babylon." The first large work of Gaskell - the novel "Mary Barton" - was dedicated to the realities of harsh Manchester life. In its issues, this novel resembled Dostoevsky's crime and punishment. In the novel North and South, Gaskell contrasts dynamic industrial activity in the north of England by the measured course of life in the south of the country. The writer attracted the idyllic paintings of the “good old England”, which she saw during her childhood. Gaskell, with love and a fair amount of humor, reproduces these paintings in his novel “Krenford”. This is the name of the small old -world town invented by her, in which patriarchal customs reign and very decisive women live. Krenford reflected the nostalgia of the writer in the time of the distant country of her childhood and youth that has melted in the fog. This novel, in its style and a soft, friendly humor, resembles Dickens prose. The writer’s friend Charlotte Bronte noted that “Cranford” is a living, expressive, energetic, wise and at the same time a good and condescending work.

The publication decorates the drawings of two British artists: George Du Morie and Hugh Thomson. Du Morye was born in 1834 in Paris, but his parents soon left France and settled in England. George first studied chemistry at the University College of London, but then he completely surrendered to drawing. Soon he became a famous cartoonist who collaborated with the British satirical magazine Punch for a long time. Du Morye was also engaged in illustrating books. Due to problems with vision, he had to leave drawing, and in the second half of his life, Du Morye wrote several novels in the Gothic style. Hugh Thomson was born in 1860 in Northern Ireland. He did not receive a systematic art education, but this did not prevent him from gaining the glory of a classic of a book illustration during his lifetime. Thomson managed to illustrate hundreds of books, among which were the novels of Dickens, Tekkestea, Osten, Shakespeare's play. The audience delighted how exactly in his drawings he conveys the details of the interiors, landscapes, clothes of characters and their characters. All these features are inherent in his drawings to the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell.