North and South is a social novel by an English writer Elizabeth Gaskell about the life difficulties of the industrial North of England in the nineteenth century, written on behalf of the lady from the South. The novel is set in the fictional industrial town of Milton in the north of England. Margaret Hale is a daughter of an Anglican priest, who forced to leave her home in the tranquil, rural south and settles with her parents in Milton. She witnesses the brutal world wrought by the Industrial Revolution, seeing employers and workers clashing in the first strikes. North and South is one of the best known novels by Elizabeth Gaskell and has been adapted for television twice, in 1975 and 2004. The latter version renewed interest in the novel and gained it a wider audience.