First published in eight installments from 1851 to 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford", one of her most popular works, is a gentle and humorous picture of an English country village. Based on the village of Gaskell's childhood, the novel is narrated by a young woman visiting the town who describes the genteel poverty of the town's female inhabitants and centers on the lives of two middle-aged spinster sisters, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah. The ladies work hard to conserve their appearances, habits, and social standards of ...
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First published in eight installments from 1851 to 1853, Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford", one of her most popular works, is a gentle and humorous picture of an English country village. Based on the village of Gaskell's childhood, the novel is narrated by a young woman visiting the town who describes the genteel poverty of the town's female inhabitants and centers on the lives of two middle-aged spinster sisters, Miss Matty and Miss Deborah. The ladies work hard to conserve their appearances, habits, and social standards of propriety even in their reduced circumstances. Told in a series of graceful and loosely related sketches, the residents of Cranford are challenged when the poor and socially awkward Captain Brown moves to town with his two daughters. He rejects their rules of politeness and openly discusses his poverty and difficulties. Many of the novel's tales concern the love lives, tragedies, and family dramas of the small town's colorful characters. In a changing and modernizing world, the endearing stories and sympathetic struggles of the villagers of Cranford are captured in this compassionate and hopeful portrayal of small-town English life. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.
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Cranford is a series of loosely connected episodic tales of an English town primarily populated by women. It is a small community of middle-aged and elderly women who react to the changes in their village, usually with some trepidation. They adhere to the idea that there are set and proper ways of conducting daily tasks and that one is poorly served by disruption of the tidy patterns of life, reflective of English attitudes in the transition between agrarian and industrial eras. Cranford is a caring community, full of random acts of faith and kindness. Lovely and very comforting domestic fiction.
