Cranford: Elizabeth Gaskell's Best Known Novel (Timeless Classic Books)

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Oct 29, 2010 - Fiction - 138 pages

"Cranford" is the best known novel of 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. The book was first published in a series of episodes in a magazine that was edited by Charles Dickens entitled "Household Words".The fictional town of Cranford is closely modeled after Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs. Gaskell knew well. The book focuses around the lives of Mary Smith and her friends Miss Matty and Miss Deborah who are spinster sisters.We come to know many of the people of Cranford such as Miss Pole, who is supposed to be the most reasonable and enlightened of all the Cranford ladies. We learn of a former milliner named Batty Barker, who owns a cow that she loves like a daughter. We see Peter Jenkyns, the long lost brother of the spinster sisters, return from India.The novel was adapted for television by the BBC three times.

About the author

Elizabeth Gaskell was born on September 29, 1810 to a Unitarian clergyman, who was also a civil servant and journalist. Her mother died when she was young, and she was brought up by her aunt in Knutsford, a small village that was the prototype for Cranford, Hollingford and the setting for numerous other short stories. In 1832, she married William Gaskell, a Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. She participated in his ministry and collaborated with him to write the poem Sketches among the Poor in 1837. Our Society at Cranford was the first two chapters of Cranford and it appeared in Dickens' Household Words in 1851. Dickens liked it so much that he pressed Gaskell for more episodes, and she produced eight more of them between 1852 and 1853. She also wrote My Lady Ludlow and Lois the Witch, a novella that concerns the Salem witch trials. Wives and Daughters ran in Cornhill from August 1864 to January 1866. The final installment was never written but the ending was known and the novel exists now virtually complete. The story centers on a series of relationships between family groups in Hollingford. Most critics agree that her greatest achievement is the short novel Cousin Phillis. Gaskell was also followed by controversy. In 1853, she offended many readers with Ruth, which explored seduction and illegitimacy that led the "fallen woman" into ostracism and inevitable prostitution. The novel presents the social conduct in a small community when tolerance and morality clash. Critics praised the novel's moral lessons but Gaskell's own congregation burned the book and it was banned in many libraries. In 1857, The Life of Charlotte Brontė was published. The biography was initially praised but angry protests came from some of the people it dealt with. Gaskell was against any biographical notice of her being written during her lifetime. After her death on November 12, 1865, her family refused to make family letters or biographical data available.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Cranford: Elizabeth Gaskell's Best Known Novel (Timeless Classic Books)
• Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
• Contributor: Timeless Books
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010
• ISBN: 1453891811, 9781453891810
• Length: 138 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics