Cranford, whatever becomes of the gentlemen
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Cranford ran in Household Words, the magazine Charles Dickens edited, from 1851 to 1853. Gaskell based the town on Knutsford in Cheshire, where she grew up. It came out as a book in 1853. The chapters were written as separate sketches, which is why each reads on its own. Project Gutenberg carries the full text.
Where this text comes fromThe town is defined by who is missing from it. That is the joke of the opening and the premise of the whole book: Cranford is run by women, not because anyone decided so, but because the men have quietly failed to be there, and the narrator raises the question only to dismiss it as unanswerable. The chapters were written and published one at a time as separate sketches, so each begins by re-establishing the world for a reader who may have missed the last one.
What you might not noticeThe passage contains a rhetorical question that the narrator refuses to answer, asking what the gentlemen could possibly do if they were there. The book never does answer it. Source
What it trainsAt 215 characters this is one of the shortest prose passages here, and it carries a question mark, which almost nothing else on this shelf does. Three sentences average just over thirteen words, so full stops arrive quickly and the rhythm is conversational rather than literary. One semicolon and three commas are the only other punctuation. Five capitals, two inside sentences. Nothing here is long or unusual, which makes it a good passage for measuring your plain speed without any traps in the way.
More about this textWhy the Gentlemen Are Missing From Gaskell’s Cranford
Public domain status: published in 1853, more than 125 years ago. public domain, Project Gutenberg
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