A gently comic picture of life in an English country town in the mid-nineteenth century, Cranford describes the small adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle- aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Rich with humor and filled with vividly memorable characters—including the dignified Lady Glenmire and the duplicitous showman Signor Brunoni—Cranford is a portrait of kindness, compassion, and hope...

The provincial town of Cranford is a community of delightful simplicity and innocence. Yet its values were already old-fashioned and under threat from the inevitable forces of change when the mid-Victorian Mrs Gaskell described them with ironic affection and a sharp eye for the ridiculous.

Cranford explores the dying way of life of the 'Amazons' - unwarlike maiden ladies and widows of a certain age. They practise elegant economies; their days are passed in visits, cards and genteel gossip.But alongside the comedy is the pathos of restricted lives borne with courage.

Cranford is one of Mrs Gaskell's most successful novels, largely because it is such an affectionate portrait of the society she understood so well.

Introduction by Angela Thirkell

Chapter

 I OUR SOCIETY

 II THE CAPTAIN

 III A LOVE AFFAIR OF LONG AGO

 IV A VISIT TO AN OLD BACHELOR

 V OLD LETTERS

 VI POOR PETER

 VII VISITING

 VIII 'YOUR LADYSHIP'

 IX SIGNOR BRUNONI

 X THE PANIC

 XI SAMUEL BROWN

 XII ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED

 XIII STOPPED PAYMENT

 XIV FRIENDS IN NEED

 XV A HAPPY RETURN

 XVI PEACE TO CRANFORD