Cranford

"Cranford" is the best known novel of 19th century English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. The book was first published in a series of episodes in a magazine that was edited by Charles Dickens entitled "Household Words". The fictional town of Cranford is closely modeled after Knutsford in Cheshire, which Mrs. Gaskell knew well. The book focuses around the lives of Mary Smith and her friends Miss Matty and Miss Deborah who are spinster sisters. We come to know many of the people of Cranford such as Miss Pole, who is supposed to be the most reasonable and enlightened of all the Cranford ladies. We learn of a former milliner named Batty Barker, who owns a cow that she loves like a daughter. We see Peter Jenkyns, the long lost brother of the spinster sisters, return from India. The novel was adapted for television by the BBC three times.