Although Jakes breaks new publishing ground with his first novel to be produced initially as a hardcover rather than a paperback, [North and South] remains unchanged and depends upon the same undisturbed fictional formula, a fact for which the author's many fans will be thankful. With the Kents left behind, Jakes now aims to chart the lives and loves of two families, Carolina planters and Pennsylvania industrialists, respectively, and to show how their fortunes intermingle before, during, and after the Civil War…. Jakes' clumsy interjection of historical bits and pieces, seemingly straight out of a reference book, is handled awkwardly, but the narrative is enhanced by a vivid imagination and superheated action. A bit dubious, then, as history, but certainly a credible piece of entertainment.

John Brosnahan, in a review of "North and South," in Booklist (reprinted by permission of the American Library Association; copyright © 1982 by the American...