Cranford

London: Macmillan and Co, 1894. Very Good +. London: Macmillan and Co., 1894. Early reprint of the Thomson illustrated edition. Octavo; bound by Zaehnsdorf in crushed green morocco with five raised bands to spine and elaborate floral decorations to spine and front and rear covers, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers; 297pp.; half-tone illustrations. Fading to boards with scuffing to top of fore-edge--only a portion of the rear cover retains the original vibrant green color. Binding sound and pages unmarked; a handsome, Very Good or better copy. Binding dated 1895 and includes the firm's exhibition blindstamp to rear pastedown; additional stamp (truncated) reading "Bound by Zaehnsdorf for Little Brown & Co. Boston" to front free endpaper.

Gaskell's episodic novel of a genteel group of women and their spinster habits.  Gaskell and her works have gone through many critical and popular swerves since this novel's initial 1850s publication. Jenny Uglow argues in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "Often thought of as artless, or as a 'natural story-teller', she was in fact a skilled and self-conscious artist, revelling in the possibilities of genres, playing with narrative stance and ambivalence and literary reference." . (Inventory #: 32439)