ABSTRACT
Ruth is a problem novel, it is a good novel, and it is a valuable novel – all of these in a wide variety of ways. Her second full-length novel, separated from Mary Barton by five years, and by various shorter writings like The Moorland Cottage and Cranford, it shows that Elizabeth Gaskell has no intention of standing still, of ensuring popularity by keeping to what she knows she can do, of repeating a successful method, or even of improving on it. After the change from the socially-motivated Mary Barton to the nostalgic social observation of Cranfordy Ruth at first sight does show a return to social commitment, in being a study of the problem of the unmarried mother. But beyond any such very general statement very little comparison of intention or material can be made. Ruth shows a different and entirely new subject, different areas of experience, a new range of emotions, new kinds of characters, and a greatly extended technique. Shocking to the public at its first appearance, Ruth is probably the least read and least successful of all her full-length novels; yet it has some of her greatest writing in it, and stretches the art of the novel far more than Mary Barton, The reasons are many and varied, and all relate to its problems, its kind of excellence, and, indirectly, to its value and influence to other writers. Ruth is the heart and the ruling spirit of the novel which bears her name, in a way that Mary Barton is far from being, and that John Barton (the original eponymous hero) cannot be. From this fact come the problems.
