When I first encountered Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives and Daughters) I thought that she was one of those writers who ought to get more attention; later I realized my response was indicative of my own ignorance, which is so often the case. Cranford has, after all, been adapted to television with one of the best casts to be found, and I have watched the series almost as often as I have read the book. In her other works, Gaskell is concerned with social problems and issues of her time; in this book she is largely concerned with recording the lives of strong spinsters and widows in a small, old-fashioned community that sees itself as a bulwark against change. The charm of this book is the women whose stories she tells, with such particular attention to their intersections, their spats, their gossip, their mores and customs, and the changes they endure. In this regard, especially when the railroad comes to Cranford, Gaskell’s social analysis merges with her incomparable ability to draw meaning out of what for lack of a better word I would call the ordinary. She is one of those writers who reminds that there are no small lives, no ordinary people, but only the particular and the real. These writings are not intended as stories so much as portraits, “vignettes” as they are often termed, but they are as delightful as they are incisive. (I will forever see Miss Mattie as Judy Dench, Eileen Atkins as Miss Deborah, and Imelda Staunton as Miss Pole. What has that to do with the book? Actors bring their best to material that they love.)