Gentle, comic sketches of the genteel widows and spinsters of a small English town, whose small economies and kindnesses fill their quiet lives. Gaskell's most beloved book.
Books mentioned in Cranford (12)
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens: “Have you seen any numbers of ‘The Pickwick Papers’?”
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson: “Fetch me ‘Rasselas,’ my dear, out of the book-room.”
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: “She babbled on long enough for Flora to get a good long spell at the “Christmas Carol,” which Miss Matty had left on the table.”
Locksley Hall by Alfred Tennyson: “…he had proposed would have been right to Miss Matty; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after he had begun a long poem, called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable nap, unobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened her up, and she said, feeling that…”
Thaddeus of Warsaw by Jane Porter: “He spoke such pretty broken English, I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani; and while I was busy picturing his past life to myself, he had bowed me out of the room.”
The Hungarian Brothers by Anna Maria Porter: “He spoke such pretty broken English, I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani; and while I was busy picturing his past life to myself, he had bowed me out of the room.”
Santo Sebastiano; or, The Young Protector by Catherine Cuthbertson: “I could not help thinking of Thaddeus of Warsaw, and the Hungarian Brothers, and Santo Sebastiani”
Old Poz by Maria Edgeworth: “…of a third), “better than that strange old book, with the queer name, poor Captain Brown was killed for reading—that book by Mr Boz, you know—‘Old Poz’; when I was a girl—but that’s a long time ago—I acted Lucy in ‘Old Poz.’””
A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson: “Miss Matty said that she had her Bible and “Johnson’s Dictionary,” and should not have much time for reading”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “I was helping to decide whether any of the new assortment of coloured silks which they had just received at the shop would do to match a grey and black mousseline-delaine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woollen gloves.”
A Thousand and One Nights: “told more wonderful stories than Sindbad the Sailor; and, as Miss Pole said, was quite as good as an Arabian Night any evening.”
Books that mention Cranford (2)
An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott: “asked Polly, sucking her orange in public with a composure which would have scandalized the good ladies of "Cranford."”
Words Are My Matter by Ursula K. Le Guin: “Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford and Sarah Orne Jewett's Country of the Pointed Firs are both about a single town and a few strong characters.”