Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Don't get me wrong--Gaskell's novel is magnificent--a 5+++++. Where Dickens's portrait of England's early manufacturers and nascent factory system in Hard Times is caricature, Gaskell's is nuanced and complex. I wish this novel were better known and appreciated. My low rating is for the Penguin Classics edition, with introduction and notes by one Patricia Ingham, who is identified as a Fellow in English at St. Anne's College, Oxford. Since I was re-reading the novel, I disregarded the spoiler warning and read the introduction first. Apart from a few useful facts--e.g., that Gaskell originally intended to call her novel Margaret Hale after the protagonist but changed the title before publication in Dickens's Household Words, the introduction is mostly prefab class-and-gender analysis delivered in imprecise and inelegant jargon: "[Margaret] problematizes both the contemporary major discourses that justify [the workers'] emiseration: paternalism and 'the struggle for existence.' " The notes, by the way, which are not preceded by a spoiler warning, are full of spoilers; within the first couple of pages, at least two major plot developments are revealed. The notes are also full of Ms. Ingham's superfluous and condescending explanations of the significance of events and textual features (quotations, allusions, etc.) as if the benighted reader needs her guidance at every step. Finally, this edition is poorly produced: tiny font, poor contrast between page and type, and an inside margin so skimpy that it is difficult to read the full line without breaking the binding. What's happening at Penguin? at Oxford?