Everyman Classics: Ruth

'She had no penitence, no consciousness of error or offence; no knowledge of any one circumstance but that he was gone.'

Orphaned and apprenticed as a seamstress, Ruth Hilton longs for love and friendship. Lonely and vulnerable, she is seduced by the wealthy Mr Bellingham. When he grows tired of his dalliance, he abandons her, leaving her homeless and with child.

Not much more than a girl herself, Ruth becomes a mother. Assuming the identity of the widow Mrs Denbigh, she atones for her transgression by devoting herself to her son. But the tranquility of her new life is disrupted by the return of her seducer, who threatens to expose her and take her child.

Challenging the values of her time, Elizabeth Gaskell dared to show the innocence of the "fallen woman". This is a passionate and tragic story of a woman's transcendence of society's intolerance.

This is the most comprehensive edition available, with introduction, notes, selected criticism, further readings, text summary and a chronology of Elizabeth Gaskell's life and times.