CRANFORD AND CAKES

Required reading for the Book Group - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. It is all about tea and cakes (and a fair bit about clothes) in an English village in the 1850s.

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) was an English novelist who lived at the time of Charles Dickens. Dickens invited Mrs Gaskell to contribute to his magazine, Household Words and this is where Cranford first appeared in 1853.

Her novel Cranford gives an insight to the social life of women "of a certain age" in Victorian England in the 1840s. Set in a small town (Knutsford) it tells of the day to day life of a little group of unmarried women - full of social observation and gentle humour.

When giving the postman something at Christmas ("his dole") it was noted that it was a time where it was "a glorious opportunity for giving advice and benefitting her fellow-creatures.

The book is on Amazon here and the BBC dramatization is here.

Written in the 1850s, it is interesting to see how the author uses certain words, e.g. Esquimaux (Eskimos), receipt (recipe), crape (crèpe).

Actually I thought Mrs Gaskell was better known for her biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë. She had befriended Charlotte Brontë and after Charlotte's death in 1855, Charlotte's father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, commissioned Gaskell to write her biography. It was published in 1857 (but, apparently, reads much like a novel.)

Perhaps a summary of her view of the world (of poverty, industrial exploitation, womens' lives) is as she stated: "I am more and more certain we can never be certain in this world."

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Photo of cakes is The Pantry, Byres Road yesterday - a joy to the eye.