Excerpt from Cranford and Other Cales: And Other Tales Among all Mrs. Gaskell's works, "Cranford," I take it, remains to this day the most general favourite. The popular voice, although, except in a proverbial way, it need not in literary any more than in other matters be regarded as infallible, in the present instance expresses an opinion which for half a century has prevailed in "two worlds." At home, the wide favour enjoyed by this brief series of sketches, strung together with easy grace like a wreath of flowers and ivy-leaves, has been shown by an almost continuous succession of editions. Some of these have been provided with introductions possessing an interest of their own - above all, that prefaced by Mrs. Thackeray-Ritchie's most charming tribute to a writer whose genius is in so many respects sympathetic to that of the authoress of "Elizabeth." Another well-written introduction is Dr. Brooke Herford's. His edition is illustrated, but not very happily; nor are Mr. T. H. Robinson's pictures uniformly successful, though he must be thanked for his portraits of Martha, staring at the Indian, and of Lady Glenmire, issuing forth, demurely happy, from church. Everybody knows Mr. Hugh Thomson's coloured illustrations, and the artistic designs of Mr. Brock. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.