Adam and Seth Bede work as carpenters in Hayslope. Seth proposes to Dinah Morris, a gifted Methodist preacher. However, she prefers to devote herself to God’s work. Meanwhile, Adam Bede woos Dinah’s cousin Hetty Sorrel. But she is distracted by the attentions of Captain Arthur Donnithorne. When Adam finds out about Arthur’s intentions toward Hetty, he fights Arthur and forces him to leave town.
Soon after, Adam proposes to Hetty, who accepts, only to discover she is pregnant with Arthur’s child. She runs away to find Arthur but discovers that his regiment has been called away. Distraught, Hetty restrains herself from committing suicide and gives birth in a lodging-house. She then runs off with the infant and buries it in the brush, where it dies. After she is convicted for child-murder, Arthur finally hears the news, and Hetty’s commuted sentence (transportation) saves her from the gallows. Some months later, after Dinah comforts Adam during his mother’s illness, Adam comes to realize that he loves Dinah. Although reluctant at first, Dinah eventually agrees to marry Adam.
Adam Bede addresses profound questions of morality, religion, and the role of women in society, while seeking to establish a new aesthetic for fiction.

With an Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts University of Kent at Canterbury ‘Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your immediate feelings…’ Adam Bede (1859), George Eliot’s first full-length novel, marked the emergence of an artist to rank with Scott and Dickens. Set in the English Midlands of farmers and village craftsmen at the turn of the eighteenth century, the book relates a story of seduction issuing in ‘the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis’. But it is also a rich and pioneering record – drawing on intimate knowledge and affectionate memory – of a rural world that we have lost. The movement of the narration between social realism and reflection on its own processes, the exploration of motives, and the constant authorial presence all bespeak an art that strives to connect the fictional with the actual.

George Eliot’s first full-length novel is the moving, realistic portrait of three people troubled by unwise love.

Adam Bede is a hardy young carpenter who cares for his aging mother. His one weakness is the woman he loves blindly: the trifling town beauty, Hetty Sorrel, who delights only in her baubles–and the delusion that the careless Captain Donnithorne may ask for her hand.

Betrayed by their innocence, both Adam and Hetty allow their foolish hearts to trap them in a triangle of seduction, murder, and retribution. Only in the lovely Dinah Morris, a preacher, does Adam find his redemption.

Addressing questions of morality and the role of women in society, Adam Bedeexplores the dangers of relying on religious and social norms to govern destructive desires.

Gwendolen Harleth gambles her happiness when she marries a sadistic aristocrat for his money. Beautiful, neurotic, and self-centred, Gwendolen is trapped in an increasingly destructive relationship, and only her chance encounter with the idealistic Deronda seems to offer the hope of a brighter future. Deronda is searching for a vocation, and in embracing the Jewish cause he finds one that is both visionary and life-changing. Damaged by their pasts, and alienated from the society around them, they must both discover the values that will give their lives meaning. George Eliot’s powerful novel is set in a Britain whose ruling class is decadent and materialistic, its power likely to be threatened by a politically emergent Germany. The novel’s exploration of sexuality, guilt, and the will to power anticipates later developments in fiction, and its linking of the personal and the political in a context of social and economic crisis gives it special relevance to the dominant issues of the twenty-first century.

One of the masterpieces of English literature, Daniel Deronda tells the intertwined stories of two different characters as they each come to discover of the truth of their natures.

Gwendolen Harleth is the high-spirited beauty of an impoverished upper-class family. In order to restore their fortunes, she unwittingly traps herself in an oppressive marriage. She turns for solace and guidance to the high-minded young Daniel Deronda, the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, who is searching for his own path in life. But when Deronda rescues a poor Jewish girl from drowning, he discovers a world of Jewish culture previously unknown to him. When he finally uncovers the long-hidden secret of his own parentage, he must confront his true identity and destiny.

“Evangelical Teaching” is an insightful 1855 essay written by George Eliot (Marian Evans) and published in The Westminster Review. Here, Eliot explores ethical problems inherent in certain strands and styles of Christian evangelical teaching—particularly as displayed in the writings of one Dr. Cumming. While Eliot’s critique is focused on the work of this particular preacher, her insights are enduringly pertinent for those interested in the politics and ethics of religious discourse today. As always, Eliot’s authorial voice is abounding in pathos and concern for contexts of human relationality.

“If a woman really believes herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in subjection….If not, let her show her power of choosing something better.” This is the challenge thrown down to George Eliot’s heroine, Esther Lyon, who dreams of marrying into a life of refinement. But as she struggles to make her choice between two men, Esther finds her values challenged.

Felix Holt is a respectably educated young man who has relinquished opportunity for life as an artisan. An idealist, he burns to participate in political life so that he may improve the lot of his fellow artisans. Contrasted with Holt is the intelligent heir Harold Transome, whose political ambitions are a matter of business. Plot twists involving lines of inheritance and legitimacy complicate the love triangle.

Middlemarch is a recognized masterpiece that explores the complex social world of nineteenth-century England. It is concerned with the lives of several ordinary people, albeit ones with high social standing.
The novel is set in the small town of Middlemarch and follows the interrelated lives of several characters. At the heart of the book is Dorothea, a kind-hearted and honest woman who longs to find some way to improve the world. She marries an older academic, Casaubon, against the advice of her friends and family. Casaubon tries to assert his influence over Dorthea, but she refuses to succumb to his will. Casaubon soon dies of a heart attack, and Dorothea marries his cousin, Will. But, in a final attempt to control Dorothea’s life, Casaubon’s will states that if Dorothea marries Will, she will lose her claim to Casaubon’s estate.
Meanwhile, the young doctor, Lydgate, comes to Middlemarch to start his own practice. He soon falls in love with Rosamund, a woman who has spent her life in Middlemarch, and they eventually marry. Fred Vincey, used to a lavish lifestyle but also a gambler, falls into debt as he waits to inherit money from a rich neighbor. He drifts toward the clergy and longs to marry Mary Garth. But until he proves himself worthy, Mary will have nothing to do with him.
Through these various characters and their relationships, the novel explores the very fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s, showing how various human passions-heroism, egotism, love, and lust-interrelate within this society.

Dorothea Brooke is a thoughtful and idealistic young woman determined to make a difference with her life. Enamored of a man whom she believes is setting this example, she unwittingly traps herself into a loveless marriage. Her parallel is Tertius Lydgate, a visionary young doctor from the city, whose passionate ambition to spread the new science of medicine is complicated by his love for the wrong woman.

Featuring a panoply of complex, brilliantly drawn characters from every walk of life, Eliot’s masterpiece is a rich and teeming portrait of provincial life in Victorian England. Yet her characters’ struggles to retain their moral integrity in the midst of temptation and tragedy are strikingly modern in their painful ironies. The incomparable psychological insight of Middlemarch was pivotal in the shaping of twentieth-century literary realism.

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“There is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I swear by every sentence as having been written with my best blood.” Thus wrote George Eliot about Romola, the book which is central in her career as a novelist and amongst her most colorful, fluent, and persuasive works.

Set in Florence in 1492, a time of great political and religious turmoil, Eliot’s novel blends vivid fictional characters with historical figures such as Savonarola, Machiavelli, and the Medicis. When Romola, the virtuous daughter of a blind scholar, marries Tito Melema, a charismatic young Greek, she is bound to a man whose escalating betrayals threaten to destroy all that she holds dear. Profoundly inspired by Savonarola’s teachings, then crushed by the religious leader’s ultimate failure, Romola finds her salvation in noble self-sacrifice.

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George Eliot’s brilliant fiction debut contains three stories from the lives of clergymen, with the aim of disclosing the value hidden in the commonplace.

“The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton” portrays a character who is hard to like and generally despised–until his suffering shocks others into fellowship and sympathy.

In “Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story,” young Caterina is courted by two opposite men: Wybrow, who is capable of loving only himself, and Mr. Gilfil, whose love is selfless.

“Janet’s Repentance” recounts a conversion from sinfulness to righteousness, achieved through the selfless endeavors of an evangelical clergyman.

Written more than a decade after her break with the Christian faith, these tales represent Eliot’s search for a “religion of humanity” compatible with the best qualities of Christianity.

The villagers of Ravelo had the weaver Silas Marner marked as a miser but the only thing golden about Silas Marner was his heart. Silas Marner is a modest weaver accused of stealing the congregation’s funds. The thief may really be Silas’ best friend, William Dane, who has framed him but Silas is found guilty none-the-less. His fiancE abandons Silas and later marries William Dane. And so, it is with a broken heart, that Silas leaves his home and heads south. He lives as a recluse hoarding gold from his earnings. That too is stolen by the son of the town’s leading landowner. But a child soon enters Silas’s life and changes it completely.

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. Set in the early 1800s, Silas Marner, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Northern England. Falsely accused and convicted of stealing from the church, his fiance breaks their engagement and, shattered and heartbroken, Silas leaves his community. Beginning a new life in Raveloe, his withdrawal from the world is disrupted when he adopts the orphan of an opium addict. The novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated depictions of religion, and the effects of industrialization on community.

Silas Marner, a gentle linen weaver, is framed by his best friend for a heinous theft. Exiled from his small community, Marner retreats into bitter and miserly reclusion, caring only for the gold he receives for his work. When his small treasure horde is stolen, Marner feels betrayed by life yet again–until one fateful New Year’s Eve, an abandoned golden-haired child appears mysteriously on his doorstep. Through his unselfish love for this child, Marner’s heart reawakens to spiritual rebirth and true happiness. George Eliot shows how good character is rewarded in this ageless, heartwarming novel of redemption.

Though this story originally appeared in 1861, its themes and ideas are timeless.

‘Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe’, published in 1861, is the third novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans. The seemingly simple story of the weaver Silas Marner deals with issues like community, industrialisation and positive transformation, in sophisticated and engaging ways. Silas, a weaver in a city in the north of England, is falsely accused of theft and cast out by his circle of friends. He moves to a city in the Midlands where he lives as a loner for many years. His hoarded wealth is stolen by the renegade son of the town’s wealthiest family but he soon finds a far greater treasure which he nurtures with abiding love. ‘Silas Marner’ is an inspiring work which demonstrates the excellent fruits of forgiveness, loyalty and love.

Silas Marner, which first appeared in 1861, is a tale about life, love, and the need to belong. Accused of a crime he didn’t commit and unjustly forced from his home town, Silas the weaver lives a reclusive and godless life, finding love and companionship only in material objects. It takes the theft of his gold and the discovery of an abandoned infant to remind him of the importance of human relationships and faith.
Author George Eliot carefully weaves the interaction of plot and character, and, in so doing, depicts Silas Marner’s redemption and rebirth through his love and protection of the orphaned girl and the possibility of losing her. Throughout the book, Eliot also takes the opportunity to voice her feelings about industrialization, religion, and social class distinctions.

In this essay, originally published anonymously in The Westminster Review (1856), George Eliot examines the state of women’s fiction in her time. She lamentingly argues that absurd and banal novels, written by well-to-do women of her time, do great disservice for the overall appreciation of women’s intellectual capacities within society.

Eliot divides “silly novels by lady novelists” into several distinct categories: the mind-and-millinery species, the oracular type and the white-neck-cloth variety. She writes with characteristic sharp wit and insightful intellect in this scathing (but not unfeeling) feminist critique of “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists”.

George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil was first published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1859 and has now become one of the author’s most widely read and critically discussed stories. Told from the point of view of a young, egocentric, and morbid clairvoyant man, Latimer, it is a dark fantasy portrait of an artist whose visionary powers merely blight his life. The story reflected the scientific interest of the time in the physiology of the brain, mesmerism, phrenology, and experiments in revivification. It also is a reflection of the author’s moral philosophy.

The Lifted Veil is a significant part of the Victorian tradition of horror fiction, along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The Mill on the Floss, first published in 1860, tells the story of Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom as they grow from children to young adults in the small rural town of St. Ogg’s, England. Intelligent and passionate, Maggie yearns to develop her mind and break free of the constraints of her provincial village. Though she loves her brother above anyone else, Tom’s rigid, pragmatic personality often conflicts with Maggie’s headstrong nature, with increasingly tragic consequences.
A classic novel of development, The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot’s most autobiographical work. Through the characters of Tom and Maggie, Eliot examines themes of gender, education, and personality formation, and her portrayal of the town of St. Ogg’s is both a brilliant depiction of provincial narrow-mindedness and constraining social norms and an intelligent commentary on the changes to rural life brought about by the forces of industrialization.
The Mill on the Floss is an enduring portrait of love, family, and individuals striving to create their own destinies, one whose words and characters resonate as vividly today as they did for Eliot’s first readers.

This powerful and moving 1860 novel is believed to be George Eliot’s most autobiographical novel. She was certainly referencing personal experience when she wrote the character of Maggie Tulliver.

The protagonist siblings, Tom and Maggie, are brought up in Lincolnshire, at Dorlcote Mill, on the banks of the imaginary River Floss. Maggie adores and worships her brother. As a young boy, he has adopted a chivalrous, manly, moral code, but also displays a reluctance to learn, and he fails dismally to apply himself to his education. His father, anxious to see Tom formally educated (“So as he might be up to the tricks o’ these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish”) opts to send him to board with a tutor. Tom struggles with Latin and dreads the inclusion of Greek in the syllabus.

Maggie outshines him intellectually, showing herself to be astute and intelligent, which goes against the expectations for a girl in the society of the day and of her family. Her development into adulthood is made difficult by prevailing societal attitudes toward women. Many references to those attitudes are made in the work, and there is clearly a feminist perspective to the novel. However, Maggie is desperate to win approval.

Tom’s life is changed drastically when his father becomes a debtor to the point of bankruptcy and a fall from his horse leaves him gravely ill. Tom’s pride and family loyalty push him into a life and career he wouldn’t have chosen for himself, desperate to pay off his father’s debts. Eventually, through the encouragement of his inarticulate and lowly-born childhood friend, Bob Jakin, Tom makes the best of his situation. (Bob is a dedicated friend to Tom and Maggie throughout the novel).

Dominating the family are their three aunts (formerly Dodson sisters) and their husbands. These aunts and Mrs. Tulliver are regarded as one of the most wonderful comic creations of nineteenth-century fiction.

Maggie becomes a woman and ultimately involved in relationships with two men. Phillip: a close friend who is the son of her father’s enemy and persecutor. And Steven: a charming, upper-class suitor who just happens to be her cousin Lucy’s recognized Beau. This internal battle between her sense of decency, her family’s expectations of her, and her own desires tears her apart. Tom does not approve of Maggie’s behavior regarding either one of these relationships and disowns Maggie. Eliot then brings this classic romantic novel to a suspenseful and beautifully written conclusion.

Set in nineteenth-century England, this great novel of domestic realism sympathetically portrays a young woman’s vain efforts to adapt to her provincial world.

Maggie Tulliver, whose father owns a mill perched on the banks of the River Floss, is intelligent and imaginative beyond the understanding of her community, her relatives, and particularly her brother, Tom. Despite their opposite temperaments, Maggie and Tom are united by a strong bond. But this bond suffers when Tom’s sense of family honor leads him to forbid her to associate with the one friend who appreciates her intelligence and imagination. Later, when Maggie falls in love with the handsome and passionate fiancé of her cousin and is caught in a compromising situation, she fears her relationship with Tom may never recover.

First published in 1861, The Mill on the Floss was a best-seller in its day. This classic novel explores the traditions and moral expectations of an English rural community. Maggie Tulliver is a girl of uncontrollable romantic ideals. But her brother, along with most of society, cannot accept her brashness and vitality. Narrator Jill Tanner gracefully unfolds this tragic tale of love and loss.