Customer reviews

5 star		65%
4 star		16%
3 star		13%
2 star		1%
1 star		6%

How are ratings calculated?

Review this product

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Amazon Customer

Multiple Errors

Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is not a review for the book, but for this specific kindle edition.

There were two blatant errors within the first two chapters. I’m not talking grammar nits, but big distracting errors (i.e., “she did not speak for COME time...” — “some” time??).

I just returned it - I recommend looking elsewhere for a competent kindle edition of this novel.

Kindle Customer

The work of a master

Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2017

Verified Purchase

This review is for Goodreads and there are 62,000 ratings and/or reviews already. So what is the point of my writing a synopsis? The setting is a small English village circa 1850. The narrator is Mary Smith. She tells many stories of the ladies of Cranford and their interactions with the protagonist is Miss. Matilda Jenkyns – the kindest soul in all of literature [if there is someone kinder please let me know – I should like to read their story]. This episodic novel is a celebration of the bucolic village life. It is laugh out loud funny and tear provokingly poignant. It’s a like Sinclair Lewis’ “Main Street” in its depiction of small town life and politics and hypocrisy – yet the satire here is less ferocious, more sanguine and forgiving. The characters are indelible. Miss. Matty is a character so well drawn, so thoroughly fleshed out by Miss. Gaskell, that the reader never once questions the great love and generosity that is lavished upon her. There are great comedic set pieces – the cow in pajamas, the cat that swallowed the lace. The story of Miss Matty’s brother Peter leaving home and the effect it had on their mother – it’s all so fresh I can hardly write about it without getting emotional. There is also a little story Miss Matty tells about how throughout her adult life she has been visited in her dreams by a two year old girl who reaches up her arms to be held and kissed – the scene is so rich, so exquisitely rendered – the literary equivalent to Rembrandt or Renoir – so seemingly effortless and so obviously the work of a master. Now I’m going to be silly and take you into my confidence. I love reading ‘reader’ surveys where they ask if you’ve ever fallen in love with a character from a book. Mr. Darcy usually comes out the victor in these – but I find Thomas Holbrook’s character and countenance quite in line with my ideal – his attitudes and ideas and his love of literature. I’m sure he’d have been a fan of Miss. Gaskell and the lovely ladies of Cranford.

PORTRAIT OF A BYGONE ERA…

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

This is a wonderful view of village life in mid nineteenth century Victorian England. Told as a series of interlocking vignettes over time, based upon the observations of Mary Smith, a frequent visitor to the village, it paints an indelible portrait.

The narrative focuses primarily on how a group of genteel ladies, mostly widows and spinsters, live and pass the time, constrained by their means and the social mores of the time. They are a quite insular group, narrow in their beliefs and world views. Yet, a number of them are quite kind and mindful of doing what is right, albeit within a most narrow and socially acceptable recourse. Still, there is the occasional breakaway moment that causes consternation within the group.

The book provides a very interesting and well-written bird’s-eye view into what English village life was once like. I saw the BBC adaptation based on this book a number of years. Now, having read the book upon which it was based, I will revisit the BBC adaptation, which I loved.

Lewis Woolston

The English Way

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2016

Verified Purchase

I had previously read "Wives and Daughters" by the same author and enjoyed it so I thought I would give this a try. I am a dedicated anglophile in my literary taste. I have a strong preference that my reading should have a lot of writers who are English and dead.
Cranford centres on a little village in the English countryside of the same name. The majority of the inhabitants are women, widows and spinsters living genteel lives on inherited money. Their days are spent socializing with each other and the village and church parish fill up their lives. The scene is charming and makes one homesick for a time and a place I've never actually lived in.
The real substance of this novel is the relationships of the women with each other and how they endure the various turns of life. Some harbour secret regrets for never marrying and having children and live quiet lives of loneliness and desperation as elderly spinsters too proud and decent to let anyone know how they suffer. Others grieve for family long dead and gone and confine their hope for the life hereafter as promised by their church.
The whole novel is beautiful and deserves to be read as an ode to vanished small town English life as well as the secret lives of women.
I would gladly read it again.

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

Fantastic novel- brilliant read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

Elizabeth Gaskell is a brilliant writer. The characters dance on the page and she paints a wonderful picture of the gorgeous Cheshire. It evokes a real sense of the effect of the coming of trains and the impact of the industrial revolution is almost tangible. Read it people!

Mrs Erica V Heeley

kindle download a complete failure

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 19, 2021

Verified Purchase

I received this on Kindle. The Kindle version was unreadable: the English did not make sense - strings of prepositions leading nowhere and also page references attached to a word interspersed into the text. I have now borrowed the book from a friend, which, although old fashioned, makes sense, which was what I was expecting on the Kindle. Please don’t send this Kindle version to anyone again. It does total disservice to our classic writers.

M. Dowden

Enjoyable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2010

Verified Purchase

If you have seen the tv series of Cranford then you have some idea of the story, although in that another two stories by Elizabeth Gaskell was added. Cranford isn't really a novel as such, it is a series of vignettes, or short stories and it was originally published from time to time in Household Words.

There is not a main plot as such, because of the way it was originally composed, however that doesn't detract from it as something fun to read. There is a lot of humour here, and my favourite is a cow being given clothing due to an accident. This is always fun to read, and is ideal for relaxing and unwinding to.

Chris H

IMPOSSIBLE TO READ

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2020

Verified Purchase

Something has gone really wrong with the download for this book. The words are absolute gobbledegook.
I would like a refund of 1.99 to my Amazon Account. I will send a photo of a page so that you see what I mean!!

Moira Clacher

Cranford and Society

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2013

Verified Purchase

The condition of the book received is excellent. The coloured cover of the book a bonus.The first line of CHAPTER 1 -our society
is interesting....'In the first place,Cranford is in possession of the Amazons;all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women.'As a collector of books I do not always read complete books upon receipt.The Biography of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
is interesting and in September 2010 a memorial to Gaskell was dedicated in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey,in the form of a panel in the Hubbard memorial window,above the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer. The importance of windows is sometimes overlooked
as other tombs and inscriptions at lower levels first catch the eye.

See all reviews