SOURCE: “Mrs. Gaskell and the World of Cranford,” in Review of English Literature, Vol. 6, No. 1, January, 1965, pp. 68-79.

In the following essay, Wright defends Cranford’s merits as a novel, arguing against its detractors who see it as Gaskell's “reminiscences thinly disguised as fiction.”

‘Every schoolboy knows’ that Cranford is Knutsford, the small country town where Mrs. Gaskell was brought up, and critical comments on her work all make this point. They seem to mean by this that Mrs. Gaskell draws on her knowledge of Knutsford and her memories of its inhabitants for her detail; its topography, its customs and traditions, its stories and incidents, even its characters are used. But when all is said and done Cranford is a fiction, however much its components are based on a reality. Nor is all of Knutsford represented by a long way; the details used are selected, and Henry James...