Cranford

Summary

Cranford is a small English country town, twenty miles by railway from the busy commercial city of Drumble, where nearly every householder of the better sort is a single lady or a widow. The narrator, Mary Smith, a young woman from Drumble, visits often and describes their code: calls of exactly fifteen minutes, card parties with wafer bread-and-butter, and an 'elegant economy' that treats spending as vulgar and never names poverty. The ladies are shocked when the retired Captain Brown arrives and says openly in the street that he is poor; yet he wins them over by his kindness, even advising Miss Betsy Barker to dress her Alderney cow, which has fallen into a lime-pit, in grey flannel. He argues with the formidable Miss Deborah Jenkyns, the late rector's daughter, over whether Dr Johnson or the new 'Pickwick Papers' is the better writer. Captain Brown is killed by a train while saving a little child who has strayed onto the line; his invalid elder daughter dies soon after, and the younger, Jessie, marries her old suitor Major Gordon. After Miss Jenkyns's death the book centres on her gentle younger sister, Miss Matty. Mary learns that Miss Matty once refused her cousin Thomas Holbrook, a plain-spoken yeoman farmer, because her family thought him beneath them; the two meet again, but he dies soon after a trip to Paris. Reading old family letters, Miss Matty tells the story of her brother Peter, a boy given to jokes who was publicly flogged by his father, the rector, for a prank, ran away to sea, and was never seen again. A widowed aristocrat, Lady Glenmire, comes to stay with the grand Mrs Jamieson; a travelling conjuror, Signor Brunoni, throws the town into a panic about robbers; and Brunoni, injured when his cart breaks down, proves to be a former soldier, Samuel Brown, whose wife carried their last child across India. Her mention of a kind Englishman called the Aga Jenkyns leads Mary to write secretly to India. Lady Glenmire scandalises Cranford by marrying the good-hearted surgeon Mr Hoggins. When the Town and County Bank fails, Miss Matty loses nearly all her income, after first giving a farmer five sovereigns for one of its worthless notes. Her friends quietly pool what they can spare, her maid Martha marries and takes her in as a lodger, and Miss Matty sells tea from her parlour. Peter at last comes home from India, restores the family's comfort, and reconciles Cranford's quarrelling ladies. The chapters appeared irregularly in Charles Dickens's weekly Household Words from December 1851 to May 1853 and were collected as a book in 1853. The library text is the 1904 J. M. Dent edition, whose picture captions for C. E. Brock's illustrations are kept in brackets though the pictures are not.

Plot or Argument

• Our Society and The Captain (Chapters I–II)

  Mary Smith introduces Cranford's ladies and their rules of genteel poverty. Captain Brown's frankness about money unsettles them, his kindness wins them, and his quarrel with Miss Jenkyns over Johnson and Dickens ends when he dies saving a child on the railway line.

• A Love Affair of Long Ago (Chapters III–IV)

  With Miss Jenkyns dead, Miss Matty meets again the old bachelor Thomas Holbrook, whom she refused in youth. Mary and Miss Matty visit his farm at Woodley, where he reads poetry aloud; he goes to Paris, returns unwell, and dies.

• Old Letters and Poor Peter (Chapters V–VI)

  Burning family letters by candlelight, Miss Matty recalls her parents' courtship and her brother Peter's pranks, the flogging, his flight to sea, their mother's grief and death, and Peter's later disappearance in India.

• Visiting and Your Ladyship (Chapters VII–VIII)

  Mrs Jamieson's sister-in-law Lady Glenmire arrives, raising anxious questions of precedence and of how one addresses a peeress; she proves cheerful and unaffected.

• Signor Brunoni and The Panic (Chapters IX–X)

  A conjuror's performance excites the town, and rumours of robbers and ghosts follow; the ladies take comic precautions, and Mrs Forrester's terror of the dark lane is given its due.

• Samuel Brown and Engaged to be Married (Chapters XI–XII)

  The injured conjuror is found at a wayside inn and nursed under Mr Hoggins. His wife's story of carrying her child across India mentions the Aga Jenkyns, and Mary writes to him. Lady Glenmire becomes engaged to Mr Hoggins, to the dismay of Mrs Jamieson.

• Stopped Payment and Friends in Need (Chapters XIII–XIV)

  Miss Matty learns of the bank's failure in a draper's shop and takes a farmer's note for gold. Her friends contribute secretly through Mary's father, Martha and Jem take her in, and she is licensed to sell tea, gently refusing to undersell the grocer.

• A Happy Return and Peace to Cranford (Chapters XV–XVI)

  Peter arrives from India, recognised by his sister in her parlour. He settles her comfortably, tells tall tales of the East, and brings Mrs Jamieson and the new Mrs Hoggins together again, restoring Cranford's old friendly ways.

Characters

• Mary Smith, narrator

  Young woman from Drumble who visits Cranford and records its people with fond irony.

• Miss Matty (Matilda) Jenkyns, central character

  Gentle, timid, self-denying daughter of the late rector, whose goodness binds the town together.

• Miss Deborah Jenkyns, Matty's elder sister

  Stately leader of Cranford society and admirer of Dr Johnson.

• Captain Brown, retired officer

  Plain-spoken half-pay captain, frank about his poverty and generous with his help.

• Peter Jenkyns, Matty's brother

  Joking boy who ran away to sea and returns from India as the Aga Jenkyns.

• Miss Pole, neighbour

  Inquisitive friend who gathers the town's news and leads the scheme to help Matty.

• Mrs Jamieson, local grandee

  Slow, dignified widow whose connections set the tone of Cranford parties.

• Lady Glenmire, peeress

  Mrs Jamieson's lively Scottish sister-in-law who marries the surgeon.

• Mr Hoggins, surgeon

  Rough-mannered but capable town doctor.

• Martha, maidservant

  Miss Matty's loyal young maid, who marries Jem Hearn and gives her mistress a home.

Lessons

• Kindness beneath the rules

  Cranford's ladies keep fussy rules about calls, dress and money, and Gaskell laughs at them. Yet when trouble comes, the same ladies give quietly and generously, so the comedy turns out to cover real tenderness.

  • What rules of Cranford society seem silliest to you, and why do the ladies keep them?
  • How do Miss Matty's friends help her after the bank fails without hurting her pride?
  • Is 'elegant economy' a pretence, a courage, or something of both?

• Honesty when it costs

  Miss Matty gives five sovereigns for a farmer's worthless note because she feels responsible as a shareholder. Captain Brown admits his poverty openly. Both choose honesty over appearances.

  • Why does Miss Matty think she owes the farmer anything?
  • How does Captain Brown's openness change the town's opinion of him?
  • What would you have done in the draper's shop?

• Old loves and long regrets

  Miss Matty's lost chance with Thomas Holbrook and the family's loss of Peter show how pride and harshness can shape a whole life. Gaskell treats these sorrows gently and lets late grace restore some of what was lost.

  • Why did Miss Matty refuse Mr Holbrook, and what does she feel when they meet again?
  • What does the rector's public flogging of Peter teach about anger in a family?
  • How does Peter's return answer the sadness of the earlier chapters?

• Old ways and the railway age

  The railway that brings news from Drumble is also the train that kills Captain Brown, and the joint-stock bank that pays Miss Matty fails without warning. Gaskell shows a small community meeting the new world with its old loyalties.

  • Where do you notice the modern world pressing into Cranford?
  • What does the town keep that the modern city might lose?

Context

Cranford is set in a country town of the 1830s and 1840s, recalled from Gaskell's girlhood in Knutsford, Cheshire. Railways were spreading across England, joint-stock banks were new and sometimes failed, and many unmarried daughters of clergy and officers lived on small fixed incomes, with few ways to earn money while keeping their rank. Mrs Brown's story recalls the hardships of soldiers' families in British India.

Composition

Gaskell wrote the first chapter, 'Our Society', as a single sketch for Charles Dickens's weekly Household Words, where it appeared in December 1851. Readers' interest led her to continue in eight further instalments, printed irregularly until May 1853. Chapman and Hall published the collected chapters as a book in June 1853.

Reception

The sketches were popular from the first and Cranford became Gaskell's most widely read book, much reprinted and illustrated, including by Hugh Thomson (1891) and C. E. Brock (1904). Its humour and tenderness have kept it a favourite, and it has been adapted for stage and television.

Comparisons

• emma

  Austen's Highbury and Gaskell's Cranford are both small towns of gossip, card parties and genteel economy; Miss Bates and Miss Matty are near cousins in kindness and in poverty.

• silas-marner

  Eliot's Raveloe and Gaskell's Cranford both show village communities rallying round a lonely figure, with a long-lost connection returning near the end.

• villette

  Gaskell's friend Charlotte Brontë wrote, in the same years, of a single woman living on small means; Brontë's Lucy Snowe faces it alone, while Miss Matty is carried by her neighbours.

• middlemarch

  Eliot's larger provincial novel shares Cranford's interest in a bank's affairs, a town doctor, and the pressure of the railway age on local life.

• pride-and-prejudice

  Lady Catherine's rank and Mrs Jamieson's both rule their small worlds, and both books find comedy in the etiquette of precedence.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The unwritten rules of Cranford visiting in Chapter I.
• Captain Brown's book in his hand at the railway station.
• Miss Matty's candle-saving and old letters in Chapter V.
• Every mention of Peter before he finally appears.
• The farmer's five-pound note in the draper's shop.

Key terms and names

Elegant economy

Cranford's polite phrase for living cheaply while never admitting to being poor.

Drumble

The large commercial town near Cranford, based on Manchester, where Mary Smith lives.

Household Words

The weekly magazine edited by Charles Dickens in which Cranford first appeared.

Joint-stock bank

A bank owned by many shareholders, like the Town and County Bank that fails.

Sedan-chair

An enclosed chair carried on poles by two men, still used by Cranford ladies at night.

Aga

A title of rank in parts of Asia, given to Peter Jenkyns in India.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why are the ladies of Cranford shocked by Captain Brown when he first arrives?
2. Comprehension How does Captain Brown die?
3. Comprehension What does Miss Matty do when she hears that the Town and County Bank may fail?
4. Interpretation Why does Gaskell let Mary Smith, an outsider, tell the story instead of Miss Matty?
5. Interpretation How do the old letters in Chapter V help us understand Miss Matty?
6. Interpretation Is Cranford mainly a comedy, or does its sadness matter as much as its jokes?
7. Big Question What makes a community a real neighbourhood rather than a group of people living near each other?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 6:3–4 (Scripture)

  The friends who help Miss Matty in secret, through Mary's father, give so that the left hand does not know what the right is doing.

• 1 Corinthians 13:4–5 (Scripture)

  Miss Matty's patience and kindness, which never seeks its own, are the quiet centre the narrator praises at the close.

• Luke 15:20–24 (Scripture)

  Peter's homecoming after years of absence, welcomed with joy, echoes the return of the prodigal son.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Gaskell shows that small social customs which look foolish from outside can protect dignity and carry real charity, and that a gentle person like Miss Matty can hold a community together better than a commanding one.

Rhetorical device: gentle irony. In Chapter I, Mary calls Cranford's habit of praising thrift as 'elegant' a sort of sour-grapeism that kept the ladies peaceful and satisfied, mocking and defending them in one phrase.

Debate: Resolved: that Miss Matty was right to give her gold for the farmer's note.

Memory Work

We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Argue whether Miss Matty or Miss Deborah Jenkyns is the true leader of Cranford, using Captain Brown's chapter, the bank failure and the ending.

Comparison with Emma: Compare Miss Bates in Emma with Miss Matty in Cranford: how does each author make a poor, kind, talkative woman both funny and worthy of respect?

Medical Lens

Medicine appears in small domestic forms. Mr Hoggins, the town surgeon, is trusted for his skill while his manners are deplored, a neat picture of the general practitioner in a genteel town. Captain Brown's elder daughter dies after a long illness nursed by her sister; Mr Holbrook declines and dies after his Paris trip; Signor Brunoni, hurt when his cart breaks down, is nursed back under Mr Hoggins with Lady Glenmire acting as nurse. Miss Matty's fear of green tea as bad for some constitutions and the ladies' home remedies give period colour. Mrs Brown's account of losing six children in India and carrying the last across the country is the book's most serious passage of illness and grief.

• Ch. II

  Mr Hoggins says Miss Brown cannot live many days; her sister nurses her through her last illness after their father's death.

  Death Dying Nursing Caregiving
• Ch. XI

  The injured conjuror is moved to lodgings and nursed under Mr Hoggins, whose verdict Cranford treats as infallible.

  Physicians Doctors Nursing Caregiving
• Ch. XI

  Mrs Brown tells how her children died in India and how she carried her last baby to safety.

  Death Dying

Creative Prompts

• Fiction

  Write the letter Mary Smith sends to the Aga Jenkyns in India, careful not to raise false hopes.

• Dialogue

  Stage the argument between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns over Dr Johnson and 'Pickwick', giving each a fair case.

• Essay

  Explain how the ladies of Cranford help Miss Matty after the bank fails, and why the secrecy matters to them.

• Classroom

  Make a guidebook to Cranford's customs: visiting hours, refreshments, dress and words that must never be said.

Further Reading

• Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell

  Gaskell's last novel, also set in a small town modelled on Knutsford.

• My Lady Ludlow, Elizabeth Gaskell

• Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, Jenny Uglow

• The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell

  Gaskell's biography of her friend, published in 1857.