Ruth

Ruth Hilton, a beautiful, innocent orphan apprenticed to a dressmaker, is seduced at sixteen by a wealthy young gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who abandons her, pregnant, in a Welsh village. She is rescued by a kind Dissenting minister, Thurstan Benson, and his sister, who take her into their home in a northern town and pass her off as a young widow so that her child can grow up free of shame. For years the lie protects her, until the truth comes out.

Elizabeth Gaskell published the novel in 1853, and its sympathy for a 'fallen woman' outraged many readers; members of her husband's own congregation burned copies. Read Gaskell's Mary Barton and North and South.