SOURCE: “Language Among the Amazons: Conjuring and Creativity in Cranford,” in Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 23, 1994, pp. 205-25.

In the following essay, Gavin discusses how the Cranford women create oral fictions while their male counterparts are merely readers and quoters.

My dear Mrs. Forrester, conjuring and witchcraft is a mere affair of the alphabet.

(Cranford 84)

In the town of Cranford conjuring and witchcraft are affairs of the alphabet. It is their arrangements of the alphabet, in speech and in writing, that enable the women of Cranford to sustain and protect themselves and to experience and create moments of magic in their lives. Miss Pole may not readily achieve the sleight of hand that she believes she might in following written “receipts” for conjuring tricks, but she is party to an understanding and use of language that might seem pure blindfold trickery to an outside observer. With skilled legerdemain she...