Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Cranford
    Cranford
    Cranford
    Audiobook6 hours

    Cranford

    Written by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

    Narrated by Wanda McCaddon

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 14, 2010
    ISBN9781400189458
    Author

    Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

    Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865) was a British novelist and short-story writer. Her works were Victorian social histories across many strata of society. Her most famous works include Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters.

    More audiobooks from Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

    Related to Cranford

    Related audiobooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'Bad Sex In Fiction' Award Goes To Novelist Who Compared Skin To Stained Bathtub

      Dec 1, 2017

      American writer Christopher Bollen received the, uh, honor, which was announced on Thursday. His novel The Destroyers featured a memorable pair of less-than-appealing analogies.

      1 min read

    • Article

      New Chapters Unfolding

      Nov 22, 2022

      When first I saw the vast English house that would become my home, I was overawed. An elegant redbrick Victorian vicarage in Oxford, tucked away next to a lake, with a rambling garden and an ancient willow. We toured the property as part of my husban

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Love Letter To Norfolk

      Apr 27, 2022

      A Love Letter To Norfolk
      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Frank’s Fable

      Mar 18, 2021

      Frank’s Fable
      4 min read

    • Article

      When Lizzie met Maggie

      Dec 13, 2023

      The Grim Reaper has been having a high old time of late. I've barely had a moment to keep up with my diary, I have been so busy writing letters of condolence, attending funerals and giving addresses at memorial services. I was especially saddened by

      3 min read

    • Article

      Notes On A Scandal

      Nov 16, 2022

      Dear Perusers, To be perfectly honest, I'm buggered. Mind you, an elder statesman like my good self can expect a bit of aggro at the festive season - and I've had more challenges than our tinted PM, God love him. The lezzo lynch mob have been up my b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      Stranger Than Fiction

      Apr 12, 2024

      Stranger Than Fiction
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wild Laughter

      Jul 24, 2020

      The Wild Laughter
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Living Days

      Nov 4, 2019

      The Living Days
      9 min read

    • Article

      The New Normal

      Jun 3, 2020

      The New Normal
      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 4, 2018

      I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. —Fred Allen I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of loneliness when they did not, in

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Irish question

      Aug 21, 2022

      My Irish question
      11 min read

    • Article

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own

      Apr 5, 2022

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Wisdom Of Voltaire

      Sep 7, 2022

      YEARS ago, in a happy London interlude, we lived in Covent Garden, above Rules. Over the pavement opposite, fixed to the brickwork at the back of the Vaudeville Theatre, a plaque stated that Voltaire had lived in Maiden Lane. It was 1728, and he was

      2 min read

    • Article

      Growing Up Poor, with Trump on TV

      Feb 21, 2017

      A lot of things didn’t reach the remote corner of Colorado where I grew up. Hummus, for instance, and artichokes, mailmen, punk rock, paved roads. This was the mid 80s, so the internet wouldn’t exist for another few years, and our single TV channel p

      6 min read

    • Article

      Competition

      Dec 15, 2021

      IN COMPETITION No 274, you were invited to write a poem called The Phone. Your entries were all the better for the unease, at the least, you felt for the machine. ‘Man home to wife, he barely greets her/ But dials the shop to order pizza,’ observed D

      2 min read

    • Article

      LeTtEr ROCkS

      Jan 5, 2023

      LeTtEr ROCkS
      10 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Sep 1, 2023

      It’s Tuesday and my partner tells meI smell of vacation—so, salt, pine needles,perhaps cantaloupe—depending onthe Tuesday. As a child in the woods,I woke every morning to bad hair daysand mountain breath. Rain-water collectedin gullies of blue tarps

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Cranford

    4/5

    78 ratings64 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Yet another of those books that, now I've read it, I wonder why on earth I didn't pick it up before. A deeply amusing and poignant look at a certain domestic milieu in mid-nineteenth-century England, told through a series of short vignettes.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Very pleasant glimpse into an unusual world--single aging women of the 19th century. Poor, but hiding their poverty. Gentle and genteel. None of the explosiveness of Dickens, but well worth reading.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This was a fair read and easy for the start of the new year. Now I know, though, why I didn't give Elizabeth Gaskell much of a toss at university. It speaks to the importance of hierarchy in those days, and I daresay it still occurred in small towns for decades to come. Many writers spoke of these same things in those days. Some wrote better. I actually grew up in a small town in the U.S. Midwest with these same ideals, though, and in what was considered the "upper crust" in society. I think, in some ways, it just never changes.
    • 5/5
      This is a short novel by a Victorian contemporary of Dickens and Bronte who was well-known for her longer novels. This short novel is a simple slice-of-life story of the single women in a small English town from the early to mid-Victorian era of the 1800’s. At a time when a woman’s principal goal was marriage (for survival purposes, if nothing else), the fact was that more women than men meant simply that a lot of single women had to live day-to-day. This is a marvelous telling of that story—how the women of Cranford worked together and apart to keep appearances and spirits up. I loved this book although I had tried to read it twice before without success. It is slow-paced (like its characters), but loving and genuinely compassionate, in its treatment of all the inhabitants of Cranford. It is also one of the 1001 Must Read books—and this is one I have no problem with being on the list.
    • 3/5
      The first part of the book feels choppy and episodic; the latter half, after Miss Matty loses everything in the bank failure starts tying the different strands together with the end resolving everything. The recent Masterpiece Theater adaptation took GREAT liberties with the Capt. Brown and Miss Jenkyns story lines, and the novel actually covers a great period of time: I think 10-15 years is suggested by the statement that Flora Gordon (the daughter of Jessie Brown and Major Gordon) is nearly grown at the end of the book (when she hasn't even been born at the beginning). I really enjoy Gaskell's narrative voice for Mary Smith and like Austen she pays close attention to the social action. Miss Pole has to be the poster child for skeptics.

      On a personal note, I started this book with my mother in the hospital in January. I will forever regret not finishing reading it to her.
    • 3/5
      Hmmmmm.... not sure what I thought of this book. It was enjoyable, and the narrative style is interesting - a little strange, actually. But it made more sense when I learned that she wrote the first chapter/story/vignette intending it as a standalone piece and later decided to continue it.

      There were things to recommend it, of course. For example, I thoroughly loved the phrase "with an oppressive dignity that found vent in endless apologies" (p.85)
    • 3/5
      This is the third of Gaskell's novels I have read, but I didn't like this nearly as much as North and South and Mary Barton, which were rich novels with deep themes and interesting characters. This was a rambling and largely plotless (albeit short) novel about the lives of various ladies in the eponymous fictional town, which is based on Knutsford in Cheshire. The characters didn't really distinguish themselves from each other in my mind, and despite some humorous passages, didn't elicit my interest. A bit disappointing.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It's not heavy in plot, but a light read about some cute little ladies. I thought of my great grandmother and her little cute ways throughout the entire book.
    • 5/5
      What an astonishing gift this book is! I'd not heard of Elizabeth Gaskell before seeing this book in an estate auction, and she is a remarkably capable author. I may seek out more books by her. This one is especially interesting, since it contains a preface written by William Makepeace Thackeray's daughter, Anne.Mrs. Gaskell excelled in portraits of the people of her time, and it's wonderful to have this insightful little volume.I bought it for the celluloid cover, which is in almost perfect condition (I have another book with this same after market cover, and have seen others). It still retains some of the original detail work, and even faint traces of the gilding.I am very happy to discover that the inside is just as lovely as the cover.
    • 4/5
      Ever since seeing Cranford on Masterpiece (made by the BBC), I've been meaning to get to this work. The makers of the television series took a lot of liberties with the book, but I think that the book and the TV series feel the same, and they are both equally good.

      I loved it - thought it was adorable and fun. It's a series of short stories tripping through a small town's life, a town whose society is largely populated with women (spinsters or widowers). There are no earth shattering stories, there is no huge plot. It's just a fun, little humorous look at small town society.
    • 3/5
      This book reads as if the author were a little distracted writing it; there are definite threads and themes, but not a lot of structure, and it ends rather abruptly, otherwise I would rate it higher.

      This is one of those books that takes you into the private homes and lives of another time. If you love Jane Austen, this book could be viewed as a portrait of the widows and spinsters so many of her less fortunate characters would be in another 20 years or more. Men are secondary characters, when they appear at all. "Elegant" ladies of limited means, described to us by a visiting younger woman relation, concerned with household economies, reputation, and social status, sparring with each other, supporting each other, showing painful strength of character, as many of them they face all their social constraints, disappointments, poverty, and personal loss. Despite all that it's often a cheerful and funny book.
    • 4/5
      In need of a bit of a comfort read after the sometimes-harrowing Bridge on the Drina
    • 5/5
      Absolutely lovely book!!! I loved every second of it and I was sad to leave Cranford when it was over. The village of Cranford is a place that is oddly overpopulated with middle age women. The women here would not dare think of themselves as equal to men, they believe themselves superior to men!! The women for the most part are all "genteel poor", as in they all have a claim to some form of respectability. Their lack of funds is never spoken of and to broach such a subject would be considered vulgar. This book is a delight and I would highly recommend it especially to anyone who liked Gaskell's other work, North and South. This book is much "lighter" than North and South in its subject matter and deals peripherally with the coming industrial revolution.
    • 2/5
      I did not get into this book, The people were shallow, not the writing but the people and I never did manage to find the story line.However the characters were well wirtten and believable. I ended up with a real feeling for the life that they were leading. Just not my seen man.
    • 4/5
      Cranford is a warm, gently wry look at provincial life in the mid 19th century. On the surface, whimsical and twee, but underneath are knowing winks and nods to the foolish vanity of polite society. Elizabeth Gaskell loves her characters generously, and her ribbing is never other than gentle. Some characters are innocent of the hardness of life, others choose not to acknowledge it.The book has a big heart. Miss Matty is the focus of everyone's concern and is the gentlest soul who brings out the good in others.The structure of society, particularly the hierarchies of social standing, are simultaneously important to Cranford's residents and rules to be broken, with the genteel mixing with their servants quite happily. Intrigues and squabbles between the ladies who think themselves grander than they are, are described with a warm humour. Elizabeth Gaskell seems to be winking at us through the pages.The book is set in the period I deal with at work, and gives a different view to that of commerce and innovation found in the records I look after. This is a society predominantly made up of women, and retired women at that. The narrator is a young woman who divides her time between Cranford and Drumble, the nearest large town. Drumble is based on the city where I work. As an almost outsider, the narrator is able to view the oddness of Cranford society with a twinkle in her eye, and others who appear in the village having experienced life elsewhere do the same.Nostalgia can be a strange thing. The book made me nostalgic for something I have never known - the quiet life in a village at a period of great economic and social change, where life continues quietly, and residents are often unaware of the kind of events taking place in cities that would eventually bring in the modern era. It isn't a sentimental nostalgia, either. There are no rose tinted spectacles. It is a snapshot of a particular way of life at a particular time in history.
    • 5/5
      I didn't love Cranford at first. It felt trivial and slow. But half way through the book I realized that I loved these characters, our narrator Miss Smith, the gossipy Miss Pole and most of all, the gentle, trusting Miss Matty. The book is made up of 16 chapters; each chronicles a small event in the quiet English town of Cranford in the 1840s. The women in the town are a tight-knit group, skeptical of outsiders and protective of each other. There are many humorous sections with mistaken identities, misunderstandings and unneeded panic, but those aren't the sections that will stay with me in years to come. The chapter that finally hooked me was ch. 13 Stopped Payment. When a local bank has unexpected troubles we have a chance to see Miss Matty's goodness shine. She is so selfless in her concern for others that it broke my heart. Her sincere love for her friends and neighbors knows no bounds. When Miss Matty own finances seem dire, the dear ladies of Cranford come together to help her without her knowledge. That's the true heart of this sweet book, friendship that rises to the occasion, silently offering a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold. To me, this quote from Miss Pole summed up how the women of Cranford see themselves ... "We, the ladies of Cranford, in my drawing-room assembled, can resolve upon something. I imagine we are none of us what may be called rich, though we all posses a genteel competency, sufficient for taste that are elegant and refined, and would not, if they could, be vulgarly ostentatious."
    • 4/5
      A lovely cozy book of a tiny quaint town and a sweetly happy ending...highly necessary for my poor frayed nerves these days.
    • 5/5
      A young visitor recounts her adventures with some of the older ladies - primarily spinsters and widows - of Cranford as they live their lives in a charming small town.My idea of Elizabeth Gaskell's writings was completely different from reality. I had read a couple of short stories as an English major, confused them, and had this image of Gaskell as the John Steinbeck of the Victorian Era. I overcame some reluctance to even add Cranford to my TBR list. And am I glad I did! This book is a delightful, episodic tale of a small town and its inhabitants. The narrator often stays with Miss Matty while visiting the town, so many of the events involve this lady in some way or another. As I think about the book, I'm realizing that very little actually happens by way of plot, but the characters are by turns sweet, funny, and quirky. The story gives a picture of small town life in general as well as the class distinctions of its time period in an amusing, rather than depressing, way. Cranford has definitely convinced me to try more by this author.
    • 5/5
      A delightful book of 193 pages taking place during the industrial revolution in England. It is the story of manners and local customs as mostly seen through the eyes of females. The life of a woman was hard and oft times unhappy; this book was no exception. A great read!
    • 4/5
      2009, Blackstone Audiobooks, Read by Nadia MayThe charming Victorian town of Cranford is populated by a host of venerable female lovelies. Among them: Mary Smith, the narrator, who stays frequently with Miss Matty Jenkyns, the amiable and good-natured, if rather timid, old spinster – and my favourite character; Miss Deborah Jenkyns, Miss Matty’s imperious older sister, who dies early on in the novel; Miss Pole, allegedly the most enlightened (though I beg to differ) of the Cranford ladies; Mrs Jamieson, a mostly lethargic widow with aristocratic connections and the owner of the beloved dog, Carlo. Male characters, few but nonetheless entertaining, include the poor Captain Brown, who moves to Cranford with his two daughters; a creepy butler; a surgeon; and a travelling magician.And what the ladies do get up to over tea! Miss Deoborah and Captain Brown engage in a positively pretentious literary disagreement over the merits of Dickens and Dr Johnson. Miss Deborah, who considers “it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature to publish in numbers” (Ch 1), is appalled at the Captain’s regard for the contemporary The Pickwick Papers. And when the ladies have themselves convinced that Cranford’s homes are being “attacked” by robbers, they work themselves up to confessions of greatest fear: ghosts; criminals; and Miss Matty’s hilarious account of the proverbial monster-under-the-bed. But at its heart, Cranford is most importantly a novel about love and friendship. When Miss Matty’s livelihood is erased by the bad investments of her late father, her friends, and indeed all Cranford, rally to ensure she will be able to remain in her home. A plan is mutually agreed upon where she will sell tea from her parlour (very discreetly, of course, lest anyone should think that Miss Matilda Jenkyns stoop to engaging in the baseness of trade). Now, if only Miss Matty would refrain from attempting to promote her own failure:“I left Miss Matty with a good heart. Her sales of tea during the first two days had surpassed my most sanguine expectations. The whole country round seemed to be all out of tea at once. The only alteration I could have desired in Miss Matty’s way of doing business was, that she should not have so plaintively entreated some of her customers not to buy green tea – running it down as a slow poison, sure to destroy the nerves, and produce all manner of evil. Their pertinacity in taking it, in spite of all her warnings, distressed her so much that I really thought she would relinquish the sale of it, and so lose half her custom; and I was driven to my wits’ end for instances of longevity entirely attributable to a persevering use of green tea.” (Ch 15)While North and South remains my absolute favourite of Gaskell’s work, I thoroughly enjoyed Cranford. It is positively charming. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A pleasant story that ends with a bank bust. Lots of quirky ladies involved, mostly with good hearts, and what's not to love about Miss Matty. It takes a while to find out the name of the narrator, and then it's done with little fanfare. A friendly counterpoint to all the Dickens I've been reading, and well written too. Did I mention the tea business? After I finished the book I watched the recent miniseries. It seems a few other Gaskell stories were incorporated into Cranford, and some of the plots were tweaked. Read the book first.
    • 3/5
      I get the impression that Cranford is Gaskell's most beloved novel, but it's not my favorite. It's very charming and sweet, but I can't get over the sense of sadness and thwartedness that pervades.
    • 4/5
      4½ stars. I like the light humor & pathos in this novel, very similar in style to Jane Austen, Angela Thirkell or Miss Read. Much more of a fun read compared to Gaskell's North and South…

      Nadia May does a good narration in this audiobook edition.
    • 4/5

      What a gorgeous book. After years of avoiding Victorian literature, in the past twelve months I've fallen in love with Gaskell's writing. This is a short work: more a series of episodes than a linear narrative. It centres on the lives of a group of women who dominate society in the small town of Cranford. They are united by being single - widows and spinsters - and by the fact that live in genteel poverty.

      Cranford is at times laugh-out-loud funny, at times deeply moving. Within five minutes of starting the novel I was laughing at the gentle satire on human foibles and life in a small town. Forty minutes later, I was crying about the death of one of the characters. The pattern of alternating laughter and tears continued until the very end. At least, the tears don't last quite till the end: it's a book which thankfully ends on a happy note. Cranford is sentimental, but not cloyingly so. The humour cuts through the sentiment, while making the sad moments even more poignant.

      The novel is a first person narrative in the form of a memoir. Relatively little is revealed about the narrator, although more becomes known about her as the novel progresses. The narrator is herself a lovely character, although the real star of the novel is the wonderful Miss Matty Jenkyns. I love Miss Matty and I loved spending time in Cranford. I'm particularly happy to have listened to the Naxos audiobook version, superbly narrated by Clare Wille. Now I have to watch the BBC television series and see how it measures up to the original. This is a 4-1/2 star read.
    • 4/5
      I was inspired to read Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell after watching the PBS/BBC miniseries last year. The town of Cranford is dominated by women. There are relatively few men, at least in the social circle of the characters in this book. The main characters are all single, either spinsters or widows, and they fiercely guard their way of life.The book, originally published serially in 1853 in Charles Dickens' magazine Household Words, is a series of vignettes of the daily life of Miss Mathilda Jenkyns. This book is definitely character driven and starts off slow. Nothing truly exciting ever happens in Cranford and you have to get to know the characters before you understand how small disruptions can make huge waves in their lives. Gaskell manages to convey how important small events are to these characters. You get the sense that if anything big ever happened they'd die from the shock. The narrator, Mary Smith, a frequent (and slightly more worldly) visitor to the town tries to keep molehills from turning into mountains and for the most part is successful. But, sometimes even she gets sucked into the daily drama.Fans of the miniseries might be disappointed with the book. Many of the funniest storylines from the series are added. But, the loyalty and friendship the characters display towards each other should endear this book to all but the most jaded reader.
    • 2/5
      Gaskell tried but unfortunately could not live up to the standards of Jane Austen, it picked up somewhat towards the end but still as a whole I found this book to be quite boring. 
    • 2/5
      Oddly I half expected this book to be funny...it wasn't. Rather it was boring beyond measure. If it hadn't been a book club choice (and admittedly I chose it) I would never have finished it. Not a book I would recommend to others.
    • 3/5
      This is a sweet tale of the little old ladies living in a small town in England. It's told from the perspective of a young visitor, including her affectionate yet sly remarks about the quirks of life in Cranford. The story mostly follows Miss Matty, a elderly, dimwitted but incredibly kind spinster. This book is a wonderful slice of life, but there's not great deal to it.
    • 3/5
      I swing between deciding Miss Matty's a doormat and loving her dearly. Gaskell's wit is delicious.
    • 4/5
      "In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women.I love the first line of this book. The reader knows from the beginning that this is going to be a fun book. Elizabeth Gaskell doesn't disappoint. There are some men in the story, but they remain on the sidelines. They are not essential to the story. In fact, that's quite the premise of the book -- men aren't necessary. Considering that Gaskell wrote this book in the early 1850s, this is quite shocking. During her day, women were expected to be dependent upon men for everything. So, Gaskell does something quite out of character within the Victorian period by fleshing out these eccentric women who are quite independent. The book was first written and published in installments in Charles Dickens' Household Words beginning in December 1851. The book is written as a series of vignettes as we follow the women throughout their lives. There really is not much of a plot, but rather brief glimpses into the lives of these women.The women all abide by a very strict code of propriety. For example, visiting hours are strictly kept to after twelve noon. It would be unheard of to come to a neighbor's home before this time. The women also practice what is called "elegant economy." They feel it vulgar to discuss money, and everyone pretends that they have more than they do. For instance, they pretend that they walk instead of getting a buggy because it's a beautiful night -- not because it's expensive. They want to keep at bay any appearance of impropriety, which also extends to their household help. The maids are forbidden to have "followers" or boyfriends. One exception to this is later in the book when Miss Matty is older and her sister has died. She allows her maid Martha to have a follower, although it still bothers her. It's as if these women are holding out against the changing times. But, eventually they begin to see that change comes to all of us no matter how hard we try to hold it at bay. This is a delightful little book. The women are eccentric, kind, funny, strong and yet vulnerable. I highly recommend this one.