Cranford (novel)
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Cranford (novel)
''Cranford'' is an episodic novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell. It first appeared in instalments in the magazine ''Household Words'', then was published with minor revisions as a book with the title ''Cranford'' in 1853. The work slowly became popular and from the start of the 20th century it saw a number of dramatic treatments for the stage, the radio and TV. Background The fictional Cranford is based on the small Cheshire town of Knutsford in which Elizabeth Gaskell grew up. She had already drawn on her childhood memories for an article published in America, "The Last Generation in England" (1849), and for the town of Duncombe which featured in her extended story "Mr. Harrison's Confessions" (1851). These accounts of life in a country town and the old-fashioned class snobbery prevailing there were carried over into what was originally intended simply as another story, published as "Our Society in Cranford" in the magazine ''Household Words'' in December 1851. Seeing th ...
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Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer, and short story writer. Her novels offer detailed studies of Victorian era, Victorian society, including the lives of the very poor. Her first novel, ''Mary Barton'', was published in 1848. Her only biography ''The Life of Charlotte Brontë'', published in 1857, was controversial and significant in establishing the Brontë family's lasting fame. Among Gaskell's best known novels are ''Cranford (novel), Cranford'' (1851–1853), ''North and South (Gaskell novel), North and South'' (1854–1855), and ''Wives and Daughters'' (1864–1866), all of which have been adapted for television by the BBC. Early life She was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on 29 September 1810 in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, London, now 93 Cheyne Walk. The doctor who delivered her was Anthony Todd Thomson, whose sister Catherine later became Gaskell's step ...
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Jenny Uglow
Jennifer Sheila Uglow (, (accessed 5 February 2008).
(accessed 19 August 2022).
born 1947) is an English biographer, historian, critic and publisher. She was an editorial director of Chatto and Windus, Chatto & Windus. She has written critically acclaimed biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth, Thomas Bewick, and Edward Lear, and a history and joint biography of the Lunar Society, among others, and has also compiled ''The Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography''. She won the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2003 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for ''The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810'', and her works have twice been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards, Whitbread Prize. She is a past president of the Alliance of Literary Societies and has also chaired the Council of the Royal Society of Literature.


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Return To Cranford
''Return to Cranford'' is the two-part second series of a British television series directed by Simon Curtis. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was based on material from two novellas and a short story by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1863: '' Cranford'', ''The Moorland Cottage'' and ''The Cage at Cranford''. Themes from '' My Lady Ludlow'', '' Mr Harrison's Confessions'' and '' The Last Generation in England'' are included to provide continuity with the ''first series''. The two episodes were broadcast in the UK on BBC One in December 2009. In the United States, they were broadcast by PBS as part of its ''Masterpiece Theatre'' series in January 2010. Most of the cast members from the first series, including Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton, Julia McKenzie, Deborah Findlay and Barbara Flynn reprised their roles, with Jonathan Pryce, Celia Imrie, Lesley Sharp, Nicholas Le Prevost, Jodie Whittaker, Tom Hiddleston, Michelle Dockery, Matthew McNulty, Rory Kinn ...
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My Lady Ludlow
''My Lady Ludlow'' is a novel (over 77,000 words in the Project Gutenberg text) by Elizabeth Gaskell. It originally appeared in the magazine ''Household Words'' in 1858, and was republished in '' Round the Sofa'' in 1859, with framing passages added at the start and end. The novel follows the daily lives of the widowed Countess of Ludlow of Hanbury and the spinster Miss Galindo, whose father was a Baronet, and their caring for other single women and girls. It is also concerned with Lady Ludlow's man of business, Mr. Horner, and a poacher's son named Harry Gregson whose education he provides for. The narrator of the story is Margaret Dawson, an elderly woman and distant relative of Lady Ludlow who was sent to live with the Countess as a teenager. TV Adaptation With '' Cranford'', '' The Last Generation in England'' and '' Mr. Harrison's Confessions'', ''My Lady Ludlow'' was adapted for television in 2007 as '' Cranford'', with Francesca Annis as the eponymous character, Alex ...
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Cranford (TV Series)
''Cranford'' is a British television series directed by Simon Curtis and Steve Hudson. The teleplay by Heidi Thomas was adapted from three novellas by Elizabeth Gaskell published between 1849 and 1858: '' Cranford'', '' My Lady Ludlow'' and '' Mr Harrison's Confessions''. " The Last Generation in England" was also used as a source. The series was transmitted in five parts in the UK by BBC One in November and December 2007. In the United States, it was broadcast in three episodes by PBS as part of its ''Masterpiece Theatre'' series in May 2008. ''Cranford'' returned with a two-part Christmas special '' Return to Cranford'' in 2009. Plot Set in the early 1840s in the fictional village of Cranford in the county of Cheshire in North West England, the story focuses primarily on the town's single and widowed middle class female inhabitants who are comfortable with their traditional way of life and place great store in propriety and maintaining an appearance of gentility. Among the ...
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Thames Television
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broadcast from 09:25 Monday morning to 17:15 Friday afternoon (19:00 Friday night until 1982) at which time it would hand over to London Weekend Television (LWT). Formed as a joint company, it merged the television interests of British Electric Traction (trading as Associated-Rediffusion) owning 49%, and Associated British Picture Corporation—soon taken over by EMI—owning 51%. Like all ITV franchisees at that time, it was a broadcaster, a producer and a commissioner of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and, as one of the "Big Five" ITV companies, for networking nationally across the ITV regions. After its loss of franchise in 1992, it continued as an independent production company until 2006. The ...
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British Broadcasting Corporation
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public broadcasting, public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. The oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,200 are in public-sector broadcasting. The BBC was established under a Royal charter#United Kingdom, royal charter, and operates under an agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual Television licensing in the United Kingdom, television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts or to use the BBC's streaming service, BBC iPlayer, iPla ...
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Ronald Gow
Ronald Gow (1 November 1897 – 27 April 1993) was an English dramatist, best known for '' Love on the Dole'' (1934). Born in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, the son of a bank manager, Gow attended Altrincham County High School. After training as a chemist, he returned to his old school as a teacher. In the late 1920s he made several educational silent films with his pupils: ''The People of the Axe'' (1926) and ''The People of the Lake'' (1928) recreated life in ancient Britain, the latter produced 'with the approval of' Sir William Boyd Dawkins; ''The Man Who Changed His Mind'' (1928) was a Boy Scout adventure with a cameo from Robert Baden-Powell; ''The Glittering Sword'' (1929) was a medieval parable about disarmament. Writing occupied his spare time during his years as a schoolmaster, and he wrote several plays for the BBC. At the age of 35 he had his first professional production, in London and New York, with ''Gallows Glorious'' (1933), a play about the Amer ...
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William IV
William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded his elder brother George IV, becoming the last king and penultimate monarch of Britain's House of Hanover. William served in the Royal Navy in his youth, spending time in British North America and the Caribbean, and was later nicknamed the "Sailor King". In 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. Between 1791 and 1811, he cohabited with the actress Dorothea Jordan, with whom he had ten children. In 1818, he married Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; William was not known to have had mistresses during their marriage. In 1827, he was appointed Britain's Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom, Lord High Admiral, the first since 1709. As his two elder brothers died without leaving Legitimacy (family law), legitimate issue ...
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Marguerite Merington
Marguerite Merington (1857 – May 20, 1951) was an English-born American author of short stories, essays, dramatic works, and biographies. For several years, she taught in Greek and Latin at the Normal College in New York before pursuing a career as an author. Early life and education Marguerite Merington was born in Stoke Newington, England, in 1857, the daughter of Elizabeth and Richard Whiskin Crawford Merington (1827-1901), a clerk in the Bank of England. Her aunt was Martha Merington, a British politician, notable as the first woman to serve as a Poor Law Guardian. In January 1869 she came with her parents to Buffalo, New York where she was educated at a convent. Even as a girl, she displayed dramatic talent, and often wrote and acted little parlor plays. Career For several years, she was instructor in Greek and Latin in the Normal College in New York. After resigning from this position, Merington pursued the career of a dramatic author. About 1889, E. H. Sothern propo ...
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All The Year Round
''All the Year Round'' was a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication '' Household Words'', abandoned due to differences with his former publisher. It hosted the serialisation of many prominent novels, including Dickens's own ''A Tale of Two Cities''. After Dickens's death in 1870, it was owned and edited by his eldest son Charles Dickens Jr., and a quarter-share was owned by the editor and journalist William Henry Wills. History 1859–1870 In 1859, Charles Dickens was the editor of his magazine '' Household Words'', published by Bradbury and Evans; their refusal to publish Dickens' defensive "personal statement" on his divorce in their other publication, ''Punch'', led Dickens to create a new weekly magazine that he would own and control entirely.Allingham, "Household Words", op. cit., last section "Wrapp ...
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Hoop Skirt
A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. It originated as a modest-sized mechanism for holding long skirts away from one's legs, to stay cooler in hot climates and to keep from tripping on the skirt during various activities. Small hoops might be worn by farmers and while working in the garden. Hoops were then adopted as a fashion item, and the size and scale of the hoops grew in grandeur, especially during the mid-nineteenth century transition from the 1850s to the 1860s.Fogg, Marnie: ''Fashion: The Whole Story'', 2013, Prestel, New York, New York, As the society of consumerism evolved, the roles of men and women changed and so did their dress. In the mid-19th century, the fashionable silhouette was a small waist with large, dome-shaped skirts. More and more petticoats were added to make the skirts appear even larger. When the circular crinoline came out in 1856, it was a revelation not ...
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