How long does it take to read Mary Barton?
a tale of Manchester life
Mary Barton by Mrs. Gaskell takes about 7 hours 42 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 42 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1848. 420 pages, about 115,500 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 50 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 42 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 49 minutes |
The page count is the median across 70 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owner's son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the two men. Through Mary's dilemma, and the moving portrayal of her father, the embittered and courageous activist John Barton, Mary Barton (1848) powerfully dramatizes the class divides of the 'hungry forties' as personal tragedy. In its social and political setting, it looks towards Elizabeth Gaskell's great novels of the industrial revolution, in particular North and South.
Subjects: Fiction, Trials (Murder), Fathers and daughters, Triangles (Interpersonal relations), Poor families, Labor unions
