A rich, comic and illuminating portrait of life in a small town, Cranford has moved and entertained readers for generations. The women of the small country town of Cranford live in genteel poverty, resolutely refusing to embrace change, while the dark clouds of urbanisation and the advance of the railway hover threateningly on the horizon. In their simple, well-ordered lives they face emotional dilemmas and upheavals, small in the scale of the ever-shifting world, but affectionately portrayed by Elizabeth Gaskell with all the weight and consequence of a grand drama.

産業革命の荒波にぽつんととり残された田舎町クランフォード．浮世ばなれしたこの町に日々をいとなむ「淑女」の面々は，ちょっと風変りだけれど皆，底ぬけに善良な人たちばかり．イギリスの女性作家ギャスケル夫人（一八一〇―六五）が絶妙な味わいの人情噺さながら，ユーモアとペーソスたっぷりに語る女の世界。