Cranford - Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn

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Résumé :
In the delicately impoverished town of Cranford, everyone is keen to know everyone else's business. The community is almost devoid of men, and in their place a solid matriarchy has formed. Manners must be observed, house calls must not exceed a quarter of an hour, and neither money matters nor death may be discussed in public. But the peace is often disturbed. Rumoured burglars, literary disagreements, and the arrival of Captain Brown and his tactless daughters all cause ripples, warmly charted by the conversational narrator, Mary Smith. When the past erupts through the fragile class distinctions and disputed tea sales, the customary perspective of the town shifts in small but perceptible ways forever. First published as a magazine serial from 1851 and then in novel form in 1853, Cranford is the best-known work by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65). This reissue is of the 1853 second edition....

Biographie:
the rest she left out, concluding that some, more lurid aspects were better kept buried. Gaskell's best-known novels include Cranford (1851-1853), North and South (1854-1855), and Wives and Daughters (1864-1866), all of which were adapted for television by the BBC. Gaskell was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on September 29, 1810, in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, London (now 93 Cheyne Walk). Her father, William Stevenson, a Unitarian from Berwick-upon-Tweed, was preacher at Failsworth, Lancashire, but resigned on ethical reasons. He traveled to London in 1806 with the aim of heading to India after being appointed private secretary to the Earl of Lauderdale, who would later become Governor General of India....

Sommaire:
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, also known as Mrs Gaskell, was an English author, biographer, and short story writer. Her stories provide a vivid image of many levels of Victorian society, including the very impoverished. Her debut work, Mary Barton, was published in 1848. The first biography of Charlotte Bronte was The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1857. In her biography, she wrote solely about the moral and sophisticated portions of Bronte's life...