[100 Things] My DVD Collection: North & South and Wives & Daughters

Jane Austen is my favourite writer of 'period drama' type fiction, but Elizabeth Gaskell comes a close second thanks to these two adaptations!

Wives and Daughters is a classic rich vs poor tale, with confusing mixed up love affairs and family ties that are enough to break your heart at times. Molly Gibson is but a lowly Doctor's daughter and falls in love with the rich but down to Earth Roger Hamley, whilst Roger's heir-to-the-estate brother, Osborne, is secretly married to a poor French country girl and has fathered a child over there! Meanwhile, Dr Gibson has remarried the well-to-do Claire who comes complete with naughty daughter who can't keep straight who she want to marry, but at one point sets her sights on Roger too! In the end, Molly gets her man and all is right with the world, but not without many a bump along the way.

North and South sees poor and fatherless Margaret moving from the frivolity of London to a poor area in the north where she meets Mr Thornton (played magnificently by the gorgeous Richard Armitage). He owns a mill and looks down his nose at the lowly workers and the lowly Margaret. Of course, in time he comes to admire her spirit and the supposed hate between them turns to love, as is so often the case. Again, its a bumpy ride to a happy ending, and there's plenty of tragedy along the way as Margaret's brother is on the run, and her mill worker friends suffer illness and death from their jobs.

Both very dramatic tales, but wonderfully acted and produced. I love both of these and say well done to the good old BBC for making them! ;)