Cranford

After reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, I had purchased The Cranford Chronicles, which is a collection of Gaskell’s three novellas, Mr. Harrison’s Confession,Cranford, and My Lady Ludlow after seeing the 2007 BBC version of Cranford.

Mrs. Gaskell had written Cranford from 1851 to 1853. It was published by her friend Charles Dickens in his magazine Household Works as a serial publication. The novella details the lives of Miss Matty and Deborah Jenkyns, two spinster sisters, and the other inhabitants of the town. Each episode is told from the point of view of Mary Smith, a frequent guest of the Misses Jenkyns.

Interestingly enough, while Cranford was intended to be a fictional novella, it included Mrs. Gaskell’s true experiences in Knutsford where she had grown up during her childhood. Some of my favorite moments in the book were based on true stories of daily life in Knutsford such as:

- Mrs. Barker, a lady who once owned a millinery shop, owns a jersey-cow named Bessie who had the misfortune of falling a lime-pit. Instead of putting the animal down, Mrs. Forrester purchased a great quantity of fabric to make a garment for her cow. This episode was actually chronicled by Mrs. Gaskell in an article that she wrote to the Union Magazine in July 1849 called The Last Generation of England. In this article, she detailed how the previous generation differed from her own by 1849.
- Excerpt: “No old lady would be so oblivious of ‘Mrs. Grundy’s’ existence now as to dare to invest her favourite cow, after its unlucky fall into a lime-pit, in flannel waistcoat and drawers, in which the said cow paraded the streets of ---- to the day of its death.”

- Mrs. Barker and Miss Pole – cat episode: Mrs. Barker and Miss Pole have read about a new method of cleaning old lace. They put a piece of lace in a bowl and pour buttermilk over it to remove the stains. Mrs. Barker’s cat decides to drink the buttermilk and accidentally swallows the lace. Both ladies run to their nearest store to purchase a mixture to ‘relieve’ the cat of the lace! Yet another episode that was chronicled in Mrs. Gaskell’s article, which just goes to show that heirlooms are worth the hassle!! If your cat ever swallows lace, you must retrieve it at all cost!
- Excerpt: “One lady left her lace basted up, in some not very sour buttermilk; and unluckily the cat lapped it up, lace and all (one would have thought the lace would have chocked her, but so it was); the lace was too valuable to be lost, so a small dose of tartar emetic was administered to the poor cat; the lace returned to view was carefully darned, and decked the good lady’s best cap for many a year after; and many a time did she tell the story, gracefully bridling up in a prim sort of way, and giving a little cough, as if preliminary to a rather improper story. The first sentence of it was always, I remember, ‘I do not think you can guess where the lace on my cap has been,’ dropping her voice, ‘in pussy’s inside, my dear!’”

The BBC version of Cranford is a mix of all three of Mrs. Gaskell’s novellas in the Cranford Chronicles and the article The Last Generation of England, despite the fact that two of the novellas take place in other towns.

As an adaptation of Gaskell’s works, I loved every moment of the film. The writers did a brilliant job in staying true to the story as much as possible while adding the stories from Mr. Harrison’s Confessions and My Lady Ludlow. While I loved all the characters, my favorites were Imelda Staunton as Miss Pole, Selina Griffiths and Deborah Findlay as the Tomkinson sisters, Barbara Flynn as Mrs. Jamieson, along with the leading ladies Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins as the Jenkyns sisters.

I don’t think I’ll ever forgot Deborah’s abhorrence of ‘popular’ literature such as Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers! My favorite scenes from the novella were in the movie, the cat/lace (with a Wellington boot) and the lime-pit jersey-cow! I could quite imagine the laughter of the costume designers when they were sewing together the outfit for the cow for the filming!

If you haven’t read Cranford or since the latest adaptation, please do so! In the words of Captain Brown, “I defy you not to roar!”

P.S. To all my fellow Cranford fans, there is a Christmas special that will air in 2009, which takes place after the wedding of Dr. Harrison and Sophy Hutton!