ABSTRACT
EG’s contributions to Household Words, which had begun with ‘Lizzie Leigh’ in the first number (30 March 1850), continued at irregular but frequent intervals during 1851 and 1852. ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ (see Volume 3 of this edition) appeared in the Extra Christmas Number for 1852, A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. The fifth and sixth instalments of Cranford appeared in the numbers for 8 and 15 January 1853, and were followed in the 22 January 1853 issue by ‘Cumberland Sheep-Shearers’ (6:148, pp. 445–51). She was paid $6.00 for the eleven and a half column piece, roughly the same rate she received for the parts of Cranford ($13.13.0 for the two thirteen and thirteen and a half column stories (Lorhli, pp. 104–5)). The article blends travel narrative and autobiography and in the description of the young lovers at the end, borders on fiction.
