Cranford (novel)

Cranford

Miss Matty and Peter
Author	Elizabeth Gaskell
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Serial:Household Words
Publication date	1851–3 (serial), 1853 (book)
Media type	Print ()

Cranford is one of the better-known novels of the 19th-century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. It was first published, irregularly, in eight instalments, between December 1851 and May 1853, in the magazine Household Words, which was edited by Charles Dickens. It was then published, with minor revision, in book form in 1853.

In the years following Elizabeth Gaskell's death the novel became immensely popular.

The first instalment (in Household Words), which became the novel's first two chapters, was originally published "as a self-contained sketch", and the "irregular way" the further seven instalments were published suggests that it took Mrs Gaskell time to think of making this into a book. She was during this period busy writing the three volume novel Ruth, which was published January 1853.

Cranford has been described as "practically structurelesss", and given the irregular nature of how it was first published, it is not surprising that it lacks unity. A. W. Ward describes the novel, as a "brief series of sketches, strung together with easy grace".

The small country town of Cranford corresponds to Knutsford, Cheshire, where Elizabeth Gaskell had spent much of her childhood and where she returned after she married. However, the story's narrator comes from the nearby industrial city of Drumble, which corresponds to Manchester, where the author lived when writing the novel.

There is no real plot, but rather a collection of satirical sketches, which sympathetically portray changing small town customs and values in mid Victorian England. Harkening back to memories of her childhood in the small Cheshire town of Knutsford, Cranford is Elizabeth Gaskell's affectionate portrait of people and customs that were already becoming anachronisms.

The book is narrated by Mary Smith, a young woman who frequently visits the town and, when away, remains abreast of events through correspondence with the other characters. The first chapter introduces the leading women of Cranford, idiosyncratic yet endearing characters who hope to preserve their lifestyles (and all-important social customs) from change. Rowena Fowler, possessor of a red silk umbrella, conservatively considers an heir while her infirm body has outlived her kin. Miss Betty Barker is also determined to preserve the past, but in the form of her cow, which she sews pyjamas for, as it lost all of its hair after falling into a lime-pit. As for Miss Deborah Jenkyns, she establishes the norms and customs by which the town must abide.