# Cranford

By Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell.

"Cranford" by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell is an episodic novel first published in 1853. Set in a small English country town, it affectionately portrays a society of genteel women—mostly widows and spinsters—navigating life with "elegant economy" while clinging to old-fashioned codes of conduct. As the outside world encroaches through railways and social change, these proud ladies must reconcile their rigid class traditions with deeper values of kindness and mutual support. The novel chronicles a vanishing way of life with humor and warmth. (Summary by Project Gutenberg, written by machine.)

- Language: English
- Author of introduction, etc.: Anne Thackeray Ritchie
- Illustrator: Hugh Thomson
- Subjects: England -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Pastoral fiction; Villages -- Fiction; Older women -- Fiction; Female friendship -- Fiction

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From Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States.