Showing results by author "George Eliot" in All Categories

"The Mill on the Floss" is George Eliot’s second novel, and was published in 1860, only a year after her first, "Adam Bede". It centres on the lives of brother and sister Tom and Maggie Tulliver growing up on the river Floss near the town of St. Oggs (a fictionalised version of Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, England) in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, with both as young adults eventually meeting a tragic end by the Mill which the family holds so dear.

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes. During the following year Eliot resumed work, fusing together several stories into a coherent whole, and during 1871–72 the novel appeared in serial form. The first one-volume edition was published in 1874, and attracted large sales. Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of ...

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, industrialization, 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 but he soon finds a far greater treasure.

This novel is based on George Eliot's own experiences of provincial life, is a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age. As the headstrong Maggie Tulliver grows into womanhood, the deep love which she has for her brother Tom turns into conflict, because she cannot reconcile his bourgeois standards with her own lively intelligence. Maggie is unable to adapt to her community or break free from it, and the result, on more than one level, is tragedy.

George Eliot’s 1859 novella, "The Lifted Veil", departs radically from the grounded realism of her longer and better known works, such as "Middlemarch" and "Daniel Deronda". Its tone calls to mind the works of middlebrow Sensationists, like Wilkie Collins ("The Moonstone"), and of some of the better known authors of Victorian era horror writings, such as Bram Stoker ("Dracula") and Mary Shelley ("Frankenstein"). Eliot here explores mystical themes, considering the world of phenomena which are felt but not seen.

The weaver Silas Marner is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in an unnamed city in Northern England in the early 19th century. He is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds, leaves the city in disgrace, and accumulates a small fortune in another town…only to lose it to theft. But he soon adopts an orphan child quite by accident. The exchange of one treasure for another is the heart of the story.

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first...

Reputed as Eliot’s favourite novel Silas Marner is set in the early years of the 19th century. Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small congregation in Lantern Yard. Falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he leaves his home and lives a solitary life near the village of Raveloe. Dedicating his life to weaving and hoarding gold for the next 15 years, circumstances beyond his control shape his destiny and when his gold is stolen, he is rescued from despair by the arrival on his lonely hearth of a beautiful little girl, whom he adopts.

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.

Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindly taking to the confectionery line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered. How is the son of a British yeoman, who has been fed principally on salt pork and yeast dumplings, to know that there is satiety for the human stomach even in a paradise of glass jars full of sugared almonds and pink lozenges, and that the tedium of life can reach a pitch where plum-buns at discretion cease to offer the slightest excitement.

Silas Marner, a weaver, is cast out from his religious community and arrives in Raveloe, where he is feared because of his mysterious nature and brooding manner. When he is left an unwanted child to care for, his love for the child grows, and the unlikely pair find that kindness from the community towards them does too.

In George Eliot's Middlemarch, the idea of marriage and vocation are explored through a small town's community of ordinary people. One of the main characters, Dorothea Brooke, is a kind and good-hearted woman who gives to the poor and helps to rebuild cottages of poor farmers. However, she is also stubborn and very strong-willed.

This romantic short story by George Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans) was first published in 1869. Told in iambic pentameter, it concerns a young Sicilian girl who harbours such intense love for the king that her longing bedevils her until she can express her feelings with the assistance of the minstrel Minuccio.

"Silas Marner" (1861) by George Eliot is a novel notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues, like religion, industrialization, community. Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation. He is falsely accused of stealing the congregation’s funds while watching over the very ill deacon. Two clues are given against Silas: a pocketknife, and the discovery of the empty money bag in his house.

Reputed to be Eliot's favorite novel, Silas Marner is set in the early years of the 19th century. Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small congregation in Lantern Yard. Falsely accused of a crime he didn't commit, he leaves his home and lives a solitary life near the village of Raveloe. Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels.

Silas Marner, a reclusive weaver shunned by the villagers of Raveloe, lives a solitary life marked by suspicion and isolation. Once cast out from his religious community due to false accusations, he finds comfort in his weaving and a growing obsession with gold. However, the sudden loss of his treasure and the unexpected arrival of a small child turn his world upside down, leading him on an unforeseen journey of redemption and connection. - Summary by Sarah Bacaller

Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-19th century.

The story of weaver Silas Marner, wrongly cast out of his religious community, who finds a reason for living when, one winter night, a little girl wanders into his cottage out of the snow. ‘Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there...

Praised by Virginia Woolf as one of the only novels "written for grown-up people", Middlemarch is a highly accomplished story, whose characters are involving and intriguing. Dorothea's story interlinks powerfully and tantalisingly with that of Lydgate's, a doctor, who joins her for a some of her journey towards making sense of her role in the world, both as a woman and as an idealist.

Maggie Tulliver has two lovers: Philip Wakem, son of her father's enemy; and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin; but the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie's struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy.