"Cranford" is a humorous account of a nineteenth-century English village dominated by a group of genteel but modestly circumstanced women. By eschewing the conventional marriage plot with its nubile heroines and focusing instead on a group of middle-aged and elderly spinsters, Elizabeth Gaskell did something highly unusual within the novel genre. Through her masterful management of the novel's tone, she underscores the value and dignity of single women's lives even as she causes us to laugh at her characters' foibles. Charles Dickens was the first of many readers to extol its wit and charm, and it has consistently been Gaskell's most popular work.
- ISBN10 0760795983
- ISBN13 9780760795989
- Publish Date 9 January 2006
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 20 January 2022
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Barnes & Noble Inc
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 208
- Language English