North & South was surprisingly well received by audiences. The BBC had low expectations, and didn’t widely publicize the series. They were surprised when only hours after the airing of the first episode the message board on BBC crashed and had to be shut down due to the large number of visitors. Subsequently, the DVD was released on 11 April 2005, due to the huge success. North & South was voted “Best Drama” in the BBC drama website’s annual poll in 2004. The serial is based on the 1854 Victorian novel North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and takes place in the years surrounding the Great Exhibition of 1851.

You’ve been blessed with good luck and fortune, but others have not.

I do know something of hardship. 16 years ago, my father died, I became the head of the family very quickly. I went to work in a draper’s shop and my mother managed, so that I could put three shillings aside a week. That taught me self-denial. Now I’m able to keep my mother in such comfort as her age requires, and I thank her every day for that early training. So, Miss Hale, I do not think that I was especially blessed with good fortune or luck.

It is surely good to try to see both sides of a question.

One minute we talk of the color of fruit... the next of love.

Look back. Look back at me.

A mother’s love holds fast and forever.