Cranford

By: Elizabeth Gaskell

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell's best-known work, is a humorous account of a nineteenth-century English village dominated by a group of genteel but modestly circumstanced women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister, Miss Matty. But domestic peace is constantly threatened in the form of financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and the reappearance of long-lost relatives.

By eschewing the conventional marriage plot with its nubile heroines and focusing instead on a group of middle-aged and elderly spinsters, Gaskell does 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.

Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor

Delightful

This is a lovely, cozy story and the narrator did a wonderful job. Definitely recommend.

A warm and funny book

A warm and funny book about a small town in Victorian England peopled with people we all know. Delightful!!

A Classic but…

I enjoyed other Elizabeth Gaskell novels Wives and Daughters, North and South and Ruth. But this is not my cup of tea, I appreciate a novel without the marriage plot but it makes me sad that for so many single women their lives were so limited. I am encouraged that society has broadened the opportunities for women and it was worth the read as a Gaskell fan.

delightful

love this gem. a delightful, funny, heart warming, and tearful story about characters you come to care about. Elizabeth Gaskill's diamond.

Wat 😶

I think this is the kind of book that is best read and not heard. I had a hard time following it. -well at least for me. I'm this way with Jane Austen and Dickens. Unless I already know the story, it's hard to understand the scene.