Transmedia Gaskell

Since the major BBC adaptations of the 2000s, Gaskell seems to have fallen out of favour with producers of classic literary adaptations. This does not mean her work has disappeared completely from our screens. Gaskell's North and South (1854) has, in fact, been adapted twice in web series form as East & West (2014–5) and Maggie Hale's Corner (2017–8). These transmedia adaptations respond playfully to the increased visibility of Gaskell brought about by the earlier television adaptations, resituating and updating the concerns of Gaskell's industrial novel in the context of contemporary culture. My chapter provides a contextualised close reading of these two transmedia adaptations, considering them alongside the 2004 BBC version, the fan culture that surrounds it and the broader development of the literary-inspired web series. I argue that the longer Maggie Hale's Corner in particular moves away from the focus on the eroticised male body and homosocial bonding central to Sandy Welch's TV adaptation, turning instead to a reading of Gaskell's source text that is sensitive to LGBTQIA+ representation and to the inequalities that define contemporary society in precarious economic times.