The Industrial Revolution

Abstract

If the work of the early French Realists was fairly free of factory smoke, this was not true of England. Even before Flaubert had witnessed the political events that provided the setting for L’Education Sentimentale, Mrs Gaskell was in the process of finishing Mary Barton. A Tale of Manchester Life (1848). Large parts of Britain were already undergoing major physical transformation, which, as yet, had no parallel in France. Much of the French industrial shift of population was directed towards existing major towns; and, although the coalfields of the north and east were fast becoming industrial belts, there was nothing comparable in size or character with the Lancashire and Yorkshire textile sprawl, the Black Country or the Clyde valley.