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    Ruth
    Ruth
    Ruth
    Audiobook18 hours

    Ruth

    Written by Elizabeth Gaskell

    Narrated by LibriVox Community

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The book is a social novel, dealing with Victorian views about sin and illegitimacy. It is a surprisingly compassionate portrayal of a 'fallen woman', a type of person normally outcast from respectable society. The title of the novel refers to the main character Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who is seduced and then abandoned by gentleman Henry Bellingham. Ruth, pregnant and alone, is taken in by a minister and his sister. They conceal her single status under the pretence of widowhood in order to protect her child from the social stigma of illegitimacy. Ruth goes on to gain a respectable position in society as a governess, which is threatened by the return of Bellingham and the revelation of her secret. (Wikipedia)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLibriVox
    Release dateAug 25, 2014
    Author

    Elizabeth Gaskell

    Mrs Gaskell was born Elizabeth Stevenson in London in 1810. Her mother Eliza, the niece of the potter Josiah Wedgwood, died when she was a child. Much of her childhood was spent in Cheshire, where she lived with an aunt at Knutsford, a town she would later immortalise as Cranford. In 1832, she married a Unitarian minister, William Gaskell (who had a literary career of his own), and they settled in Manchester. The industrial surroundings offered her inspiration for her novels. Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, was published anonymously in 1848. The best-known of her other novels are Cranford (1853) and North and South (1855). Elizabeth met Charlotte Brontë in 1850, and they struck up a great friendship. After Charlotte's death in 1855, her father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, asked Gaskell to write her biography to counteract gossip and speculation. The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857. Gaskell was also a skilled proponent of the ghost story. Her last novel, Wives and Daughters, said by many to be her most mature work remained unfinished at the time of her death in 1865.

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    Reviews for Ruth

    4.5/5

    16 ratings2 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The audio is horrible can’t even listen. Don’t make the effort.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I absolutely love the message of this story... God's love and forgiveness, sin has real consequences. Thank you to the reader.