A rich, comic and illuminating portrait of life in a small town, Cranford has moved and entertained readers for generations. This edition features illustrations by the celebrated Hugh Thomson, and an introduction by Dr Josie Billington, a specialist in Victorian literature. 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