The serialization of Cranford in Household Words: the context for an unpredictable novel

Abstract

Cranford, a novel written by Elizabeth Gaskell, was serialised in Household Words between the years 1851 and 1853. This latter was a journal founded by Charles Dickens whose first issue was launched on 30 March 1850. He has so admired Mrs Gaskell’s first work Mary Barton that he promptly wrote her to ask her to provide a work for his journal and she soon afterwards sent him Cranford. Firstly the novel was supposed to be composed of only one instalment, but the success was so huge that Dickens demanded the writer further episodes. Initially she was not sure of being able to succeed in such an onerous task, but eventually she delivered to the editor other eight parts. Dickens’ inclusions of the literary works in the various issues of the journal were not casual, as he judiciously chose the issue according to the subject of the instalment. The first one was presented on 13 December 1851 under the title Our Society at Cranford and presents the protagonists of the novel, which is a community mainly composed of women who lives in a little country town . The following instalments recount in Gaskell’s humorous technique the absurd adventures of the protagonists and their old way of living. The last episode was inserted in the issue published on 21 May 1853, named A Happy Return to Cranford.