She was a woman of decided tastes and thoughts but very kind and compassionate as well. She had been an attendant in court during her early years but on becoming a widow had retired to her family home. Lady Ludlow was a widow with only one child, the present Lord Ludlow, living. The widow contacted her relative, Lady Ludlow, to see if she could do anything to help and Lady Ludlow offered to take Margaret into her home where she was raising a few young women. Margaret Dawson’s father, a clergyman, died quite young leaving his widow and children without means of support. The third book, My Lady Ludlow, is also narrated by a woman. Mary Smith and her father are ready to help but it is really the neighbourhood who stands behind her. However, when the bank that the elder Miss Jenkyns had invested their estate with goes bankrupt Miss Matty must cut back to almost nothing. When the elder Miss Jenkyns dies her sister, Miss Matty, tries to keep things the same as her sister would have wanted them. She mostly stays with the Misses Jenkyns when she visits but there is so much visiting back and forth that she keeps in contact with all the other ladies. Mary is very fond of the women but is not blind to their eccentricities and foibles. Polite society in Cranford consists almost entirely of women on their own either because they never married or because they are widowed. The narrator is a young woman, called Mary Smith (as we eventually learn), who does not live in Cranford but visits it frequently because her father was from there. It was quite a humourous look at love and courtship all coming right in the end.

As might be expected a young unattached professional man excited a certain amount of interest amongst the unmarried females of the town. Harrison was a newly graduated surgeon who came to a small town to practice with an established bachelor doctor. Harrison’s Confessions is fairly short, more like a novella, but was a good introduction to EG’s style. Harrison’s Confessions and My Lady Ludlow. This book actually contains two other works of fiction by Gaskell, Mr. In her memory I suggested to the book club we both attended that we read Cranford and so we decided to have it for our September book. Sadly, mrsgaskell lost her battle with cancer earlier this year and I never had a chance to discuss her namesake’s writing with her. I once asked her which was her favourite and she said she liked all of them but that Cranford might be the best one to start with. I’ve been meaning to read something by Elizabeth Gaskell for a long time since my good friend and fellow BookCrosser mrsgaskell really liked her books.

The cranford chronicles