I’ve just finished reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. I read it because Jane Brocket recommended it in The Gentle Arts of Domesticity (in the section on The Domestic Library page 28).I enjoyed it – it was certainly domestic. In someone ways it reminded me of E F Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels (although less tongue in cheek). It had lots of lovely ancedotes about lace, swapping between your two candles so they’re always the same height and everybody thinks you always burn two, etc. For the lovely middle aged genteel ladies of Cranford it is all about ‘elegant economy’ anything else would be vulgar.
I recommend this book – if only to see how women of a certain age, income and class lived in the 1800s.
I even bought the latest BBC version of Cranford (did you know that the BBC Store sells region 4 (Australia) DVDs? And they arrive in less than a week!).