Cranford English Book of the Month – December

“Cranford” is the best known and most charming of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels. Recently televised by the BBC, it is a comic portrayal of early Victorian country life.  Set in the village of Cranford, we follow the life of its genteel inhabitants, mostly women, whose social attitudes remain firmly unchanging against the modernising world, and whose domestic details dominate conversation. Gaskell describes the uneventful lives of Cranford’s inhabitants in a witty and poignant way.