Cranford

by Elizabeth Gaskell, Evi O Studio (Illustrator)

Overview

A comic, engaging novel about small-town life and the stories and tribulations of those who live there.

Elizabeth Gaskell's best-known work is a humorous and lively series of vignettes covering life in a small English town. In the eight episodes, the fictional town of Knutsford experiences the visit of the enigmatic Signor Brunoni, the no-nonsense Captain Brown, stories of childhood mischief and a spate of suspected robberies. Cranford is a light-hearted and astutely observed study of an early Victorian English town, perfect for fans of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and Julia Quinn.

Part of a boldly designed series of classics, with wider margins for notes, this book is perfect for design-lovers and students alike.

"Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occasion for sport – there is lace at stake!"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781804530597
Publisher:	Welbeck Publishing Group Limited
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Evi O Studio is led by Evi, a designer with over 10 years' industry experience. She has worked as a designer at Penguin Books, and her work has won a number of publishing and design awards, including Young Designer of the Year and Book of the Year. Evi is also a well-known artist, exhibiting her abstract paintings regularly in Sydney and Melbourne.

Table of Contents

I	Our Society	1
II	The Captain	9
III	A Love Affair of Long Ago	20
IV	A Visit to an Old Bachelor	26
V	Old Letters	35
VI	Poor Peter	43
VII	Visiting	52
VIII	"Your Ladyship"	59
IX	Signor Brunoni	69
X	The Panic	76
XI	Samuel Brown	87
XII	Engaged to Be Married	95
XIII	Stopped Payment	101
XIV	Friends in Need	110
XV	A Happy Return	123
XVI	Peace to Cranford	132

Editorial Reviews

Elizabeth Langland’s edition of Cranford is likely to introduce a new generation of readers to the pleasures of Gaskell’s most delightful but least immediately appreciated novel. By including in her appendices of historical materials choice selections from conduct books and writings on political and domestic economy, as well as in her informed, accessible introduction, Langland demonstrates that, appearances aside, the world of Cranford is firmly located in its Victorian context and addresses, however obliquely, some of the most intractable problems of its age—and of ours.” — Eileen Gillooly, Columbia University

From the Publisher

"Elizabeth Langland's edition of Cranford is likely to introduce a new generation of readers to the pleasures of Gaskell's most delightful but least immediately appreciated novel. By including in her appendices of historical materials choice selections from conduct books and writings on political and domestic economy, as well as in her informed, accessible introduction, Langland demonstrates that, appearances aside, the world of Cranford is firmly located in its Victorian context and addresses, however obliquely, some of the most intractable problems of its age—and of ours."

Eileen Gillooly Columbia University

Clare Wille’s performance of this gently satirical look at a genteel English village in the first half of the nineteenth century may be the wittiest I’ve ever heard. Like a kinder version of E.F. Benson’s Mapp v. Lucia novels, Gaskell’s ladies of Cranford have their jealousies and their vanities. They also have moments of quiet tragedy (a lost brother, a suitor rejected to please the family but never forgotten) and of high drama. Wille made me laugh aloud at the pompous trumpeting of the late Reverend Jenkins. When Miss Poe comes in out of breath, you could swear Wille was running up stairs while delivering her lines. Her performance is always fully engaged, at one with the story, which is itself a small gem. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2008 - AudioFile