SOURCE: "The Humorist's Vision," in Elizabeth Gaskell: The Artist in Conflict, Twayne Publishers, 1969, pp. 132-81.

In the following excerpt, Ganz studies Gaskell's use of humor in two of her short works, "Mr. Harrison 's Confessions" and My Lady Ludlow.

"Mr. Harrison's Confessions" is indeed a remarkably enlightening introduction to Cranford, for it not only anticipates Mrs. Gaskell's basic approach in that work, but also the Cranford setting, characters, and situation. Less subtle in approach and less whimsical in characterization, it enables us to assess the fruition of her powers in Cranford where a fine discrimination is unerringly at work to suggest the humor and pathos of provincial existence.

Like Cranford, "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" treats us to a picture of small-town life in which a self-sufficient society largely composed of widows and maiden ladies pursues a well-regulated round of tea-drinkings, cardplayings, shopping trips, and outings, and indulges in its...