120,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Overnight NZ-wide delivery 🚀 Auckland Bookstore • Open 7 days, 8:30am–5pm

Cranford

By Elizabeth Gaskell
Series: Oxford World's Classics
0.0 (0 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Cranford offers a vivid and affectionate portrayal of a provincial town in early Victorian England, centred on a community of refined and independent women. The ladies, led by Miss Matty and her sister Deborah, navigate poverty, personal tragedy, and the social changes ushered in by the railway and new commercial practices. Through social comedy and moments of generous reconciliation, the story reveals how different social worlds can learn from one another, valuing the past while embracing the future.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3900

International Supplier

This title is in-stock with overseas suppliers. While it is not available locally, we fly books in weekly from the US and UK to our Auckland warehouse for immediate dispatch.

AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 2-3 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in classic British literature, social history, and stories about female resilience and community in the Victorian era.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Cranford is a vivid and affectionate portrait of a provincial town in early Victorian England, dominated by its independent and refined women, a blend of social comedy and astute observation. This edition includes two related short works by Gaskell and contemporary comment on the novel, household management, fashion, and financial scandals.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

A man ... is so in the way in the house!

A vivid and affectionate portrait of a provincial town in early Victorian England, Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford describes a community dominated by its independent and refined women. Undaunted by poverty, but dismayed by changes brought by the railway and by new commercial practices, the ladies of Cranford respond to disruption with both suspicion and courage. Miss Matty and her sister Deborah uphold standards and survive personal tragedy and everyday dramas; innovation may bring loss, but it also brings growth, and welcome freedoms.

Cranford suggests that representatives of different and apparently hostile social worlds, their minds opened by sympathy and suffering, can learn from each other. Its social comedy develops into a study of generous reconciliation, of a kind that will value the past as it actively shapes the future.

This edition includes two related short pieces by Gaskell, 'The Last Generation in England' and 'The Cage at Cranford', as well as a selection from the diverse literary and social contexts in which the Cranford tales take their place.

ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780199558308

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 09 June 2011

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Oxford University Press

Contributors:

  • Revised by Elizabeth Porges Watson
  • Introduction and notes by Dinah Birch

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 16.0mm

Width: 141.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 195g

Pages: 256

Collections

Classic Fiction Classic General Fiction Elizabeth Gaskell Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Series: Oxford World's Classics

About the Author

Dinah Birch has written widely on Ruskin, and edited his Selected Writings for Oxford World's Classics. She writes regularly for the TLS and the London Review of Books, and is the General Editor of the Oxford Companion to English Literature.

Also by Elizabeth Gaskell

View all
  • The Life of Charlotte Bronte
    Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of her close friend Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857 to immediate popular acclaim, and remains the most significant study of the enigmatic author who gave Jane Eyre the subtitle An Autobiography. It recounts Charlotte Brontë's life from her isolated childhood, through her years as a writer who had 'foreseen the single life' for herself, to her...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $3000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Mary Barton
    Penguin Classics relaunch Mary Barton, the daughter of disillusioned trade unionist, rejects her working-class lover Jem Wilson in the hope of marrying Henry Carson, the mill owner's son, and making a better life for herself and her father. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself painfully torn between the...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2500
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cranford
    Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Cranford, Gaskell's best-known work, is set in a small rural town, inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Hardback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • North and South
    North and South is one of the earliest novels of industrial alienation, tellingly linked to the plight of 19th-century women. It tells of the relationship between Margaret Hale, a girl from the old rural south, and John Thornton, a mill owner from the new industrial north.
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $3900
    Backorder
    Ships mid October
  • Wives and Daughters
    Set in English society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centres on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new stepsister, Cynthia, enters Molly's quiet life. Loveable but worldly and troubling, Cynthia's arrival alters Molly's daily life. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Cranford
    Cranford, Gaskell's best-known work, is set in a small rural town inhabited largely by women. This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Miss Matty. However, domestic peace is constantly threatened by financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2100
    Backorder
    Ships mid October
  • Gothic Tales
    Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. Disappearances, inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in The Old Nurse's Story a mysterious child roams...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Backorder
    Ships mid October
  • Ruth
    Ruth is the story of Ruth Hilton, an orphaned young seamstress who captures the attention of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter, only to cruelly desert her soon after. Nearly dead with grief and shame, Ruth is given the chance of...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Lois the Witch
    90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books Beware the self-righteous man of faith, the wicked-eyed child, the jealous lover. For this is Salem, in 1691, where rumours fly on the wind and witchcraft is abroad. Lois the Witch, cursed in childhood, is a stranger in a strange land - and the devil will work his mischief on Lois's...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $1799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • North and South
    Launching a major new paperback series - Penguin English Library. The Penguin English Library edition of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. 'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • North and South
    When Margaret Hale is uprooted from the quiet gentility of southern England and thrust into the industrial tumult of Milton, a northern mill town, her world fractures. Confronted with striking workers, choking factories, and a proud, implacable mill owner named John Thornton, Margaret must reckon with her deepest convictions about justice, class, power, and love. First published in 1854, North...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Paperback
    $4199
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks
  • North and South
    Pre-order
    North and South
    A beautiful Penguin Clothbound Classics edition of Gaskell's most famous novel ‘How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?’ Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced...
    By Elizabeth Gaskell
    Hardback
    $5000
    Pre-order
    Out 10 Nov 2026

More from General Fiction

View all
  • Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    Yesteryear
    A BOLD AND BITING SATIRE. WILL HAVE YOU GASPING TO THE FINAL PAGE — Nita Prose WICKEDLY FUNNY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND FRIGHTENINGLY PERCEPTIVE — Abigail Dean INVENTIVE, ADDICTIVE, A WILD RIDE — Ashley Audrain SHOT THROUGH WITH HUMOUR AND LACED WITH DARKNESS — Clare Mackintosh The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid's Tale — Hannah Deitch My name was Natalie Heller...
    By Caro Claire Burke
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    By Allen Levi
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people — but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    By Alison Espach
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses Paperback Box Set (5 books)
    All five of the Court of Thorns and Roses paperbacks packaged together in a gorgeous box set. "Passionate, violent, sexy and daring." —USA TODAY on A Court of Thorns and Roses Feyre is a huntress. The skin of a wolf would bring enough gold to feed her sisters for a month. But the life of a magical creature comes at...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Set
    $9999
    Elsewhere:
    $12495
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses
    The first instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON and TikTok sensation, from multi-million selling and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Maas has established herself as a fantasy fiction titan – Time Harry Potter magic, Taylor Swift sass, Fifty Shades-level athleticism – The Sunday Times With bits of Buffy, Game of Thrones and Outlander, this is a glorious series...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Mist and Fury
    A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas continues Feyre Archeron's epic journey in the world of the High Fae. Having survived the brutal trials under the Mountain, Feyre returns to the Spring Court. Though she now possesses the immortal powers of the High Fae, the traumatic experiences have left scars on her human heart. Haunted by the...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Wings and Ruin
    The third instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. In A Court of Wings and Ruin, the gripping third book of the ACOTAR series, Feyre Archeron faces the ultimate battle for her world. Having returned to the Spring Court, she is determined to gather...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight
    In A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas, readers are invited to revisit the enchanting world of Prythian in a heartwarming and introspective narrative. Set against the backdrop of the Winter Solstice, Feyre Archeron and her mate Rhysand return to centre stage as they strive to restore the Night Court after the devastating conflicts of A Court...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Frost and Starlight - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. An unmissable companion tale to the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2300
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Silver Flames - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Silver Flames - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. The latest instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Silver Flames
    The latest instalment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas. Maas has established herself as a fantasy fiction titan - Time Think Game of Thrones meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a drizzle of E.L. James – Telegraph Spiced with slick plotting and atmospheric world-building...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2100
    Elsewhere:
    $2499
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • A Court of Wings and Ruin - Night Court Edition
    Limited Edition
    A Court of Wings and Ruin - Night Court Edition
    The magic and beauty of the Night Court is captured in these LIMITED EDITIONS of the Court of Thorns and Roses series! This Night Court Edition features the Night Court symbol on a striking black and silver foiled cover and includes black sprayed edges. The third installment of the GLOBAL PHENOMENON, romantic fantasy epic and TikTok sensation, ACOTAR. From multi-million...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

General Fiction lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all