In the early forties, there was much suffering among the "mill-hands"; many were dying of starvation, and consequently there were many strikes and uprisings. These conditions led to her writing her first novel, _Mary Barton_. The book was written during the years 1845-1847, although it was not published until 1848. The nucleus of it, Mrs. Gaskell wrote to a friend, was John Barton. Since she herself was constantly wondering at the inequalities of fortune, which permitted some to starve, while others had abundance, how must it affect an ignorant man, himself on the verge of starvation, and filled with pity for the sufferings of his friends? Driven almost insane by the condition of society, and hoping to remedy it, he commits a crime, which preys so upon his conscience that it finally wears out his own life. Mrs. Gaskell in this, her first novel, has left an undying picture of that section of smoky Manchester where the mill-workers live: its narrow lanes; small but not uncomfortable cottages, well supplied with furniture in days when work was plentiful, but destitute even of a fire when it was scarce; the undersized men and women, with irregular features, pale blue eyes, sallow complexions, but with an intelligence rendered quick and sharp by their life among the machinery, and by their hard struggle for existence. The life of the poor had often furnished a theme for the poets, but it was the life of shepherds and milkmaids, above whom the blue sky arched, and whose labours were brightened by the songs of the birds, and the colours and sweet odours of fruit and flowers. But Mrs. Gaskell described the life of the poor in a town where factory smoke obscured the light of the sun, and where the weariness of labour was rendered more intense by the clanging factory bell, and the constant whirr of machinery ringing in their ears. It is a gloomy picture, but no gloomier than the reality. Disraeli in _Sybil_ discussed the questions of labour and capital in their relations to the history of England, with a broad intellectual grasp of the sociological causes which produced these conditions. He wrote in the interests of two classes, the Crown and the People, with the hope that England might again have a free monarchy and a prosperous people. It is a well illustrated treatise on government, but the principles advocated or discussed always overshadow the characters. He had no such intimate knowledge of the lives of the poor as had Mrs. Gaskell. She conducts us to the homes of John Barton, George Wilson, and Job Legh, shows the simplicity of their lives, and their sense of the injustice under which they are suffering, and their helpfulness to each other in times of need.