Books by George Eliot

Book Synopsis''the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him''George Eliot''s first published work consisted of three short novellas: ''The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton'', ''Mr Gilfil''s Love-Story'', and ''Janet''s Repentance''. Their depiction of the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town initiated a new era of nineteenth-century literary realism. The tales concern rural members of the clergy and the gossip and factions that a small town generates around them. Amos Barton only realizes how much he depends upon his wife''s selfless love when she dies prematurely; Mr Gilfil''s devotion to a girl who loves another is only fleetingly rewarded; and Janet Dempster suffers years of domestic abuse before the influence of an Evangelical minister turns her life around. These stories are remarkable for the tenderness with which Eliot portrays a bygone time of religious belief in a newly secular age, giving literary fiction an alternative language to religion and philosophy for the observation and understanding of human experience.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.Trade ReviewThese gripping stories depict the lives - gossip, rivalry, spats, loves and religious controversies - of ordinary 1800s people living in a provincial, God-fearing Midlands town. The unsolved everyday problems and confusions swirl and fascinate - much as they swirl and fascinate today. * Val Hennessy, Daily Mail *It's a little late for me to review a book that has been a prized classic of English literature for over a hundred years, so I'll confine my comments to the package - there are various editions of this book available, but given the choice I would opt for an Oxford World's Classic edition any day - the clarity of the typeface and the quality of the paper are superb, and the cover artwork is stunning. Brilliant new editions of two of George Eliot's timeless classics. * Books Monthly *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe most ambitious narrative of nineteenth-century realism, Middlemarch tells the story of an entire town in the years leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832, a time when modern methods were starting to challenge old orthodoxies. Eliot's sophisticated and acute characterization gives rich expression to every nuance of feeling, and vividly brings to life the town's inhabitants - including the young idealist Dorothea Brooke, the dry scholar Casaubon, the young, passionate reformist doctor Lydgate, the flighty young beauty Rosamond and the old, secretive banker Bulstrode - as they move in counterpoint to each other. Art, religion, politics, society, science, human relationships in all their complexity, nothing is left unexamined under the narrator's microscope. One of the greatest novels written in the English language, Middlemarch is a literary landmark in its groundbreaking approach, as well as a priceless document of its age.Trade ReviewA novel without weaknesses, it renews itself for every generation. -- Martin Amis

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne of George Eliot's most ambitious and imaginative novels, Romola is set in Renaissance Florence during the turbulent years following the expulsion of the powerful Medici family during which the zealous religious reformer Savonarola rose to control the city. At its heart is Romola, the devoted daughter of a blind scholar, married to the clever but ultimately treacherous Tito whose duplicity in both love and politics threatens to destroy everything she values, and she must break away to find her own path in life. Described by Eliot as 'written with my best blood', the story of Romola's intellectual and spiritual awakening is a compelling portrayal of a Utopian heroine, played out against a turbulent historical backdrop.Trade Review“George Eliot’s humanity colors all her other gifts—her humor, her morality, and her exquisite rhetoric.” —Henry James

Read more less

Book SynopsisDrawing on George Eliot's own childhood experiences to craft an unforgettable story of first love, sibling rivalry and regret, The Mill on the Floss is edited with an introduction and notes by A.S. Byatt, author of Possession, in Penguin Classics. Brought up at Dorlcote Mill, Maggie Tulliver worships her brother Tom and is desperate to win the approval of her parents, but her passionate, wayward nature and her fierce intelligence bring her into constant conflict with her family. As she reaches adulthood, the clash between their expectations and her desires is painfully played out as she finds herself torn between her relationships with three very different men: her proud and stubborn brother; hunchbacked Tom Wakem, the son of her family's worst enemy; and the charismatic but dangerous Stephen Guest. With its poignant portrayal of sibling relationships, The Mill on the Floss is considered George Eliot's most autobiographical novel; it is also one of her most powerful and moving. In thTrade Review"As one comes back to [Eliot's] books after years of absence they pour out, even against our expectations, the same store of energy and heat, so that we want more than anything to idle in the warmth."--Virginia Woolf

Read more less

Book Synopsis''Was her life to be always like this? - always bringing some new source of inward strife?''When the miller Mr Tulliver becomes entangled in lawsuits, he sets off a chain of events that will profoundly affect the lives of his family and bring into conflict his passionate daughter Maggie with her inflexible but adored brother Tom. As she grows older, Maggie''s discovery of romantic love draws her once more into a struggle to reconcile familial and moral claims with her own desires. Strong-willed, compassionate, and intensely loyal, Maggie seeks personal happiness and inner peace but risks rejection and ostracism in her close-knit community.Opening with one of the most powerful fictional evocations of childhood, The Mill on the Floss (1860) vividly portrays both the ''oppressive narrowness'' and the appeal of provincial England, the comedy as well as the tragedy of obscure lives. George Eliot''s most autobiographical novel was also her most controversial, and has been the subject of animTrade Reviewit's the non-posh voices that leap off the page - the wives of prosperous farmers and merchants taken directly from Eliot's own childhood * Kate Saunders, The Big Issue *It's a little late for me to review a book that has been a prized classic of English literature for over a hundred years, so I'll confine my comments to the package - there are various editions of this book available, but given the choice I would opt for an Oxford World's Classic edition any day - the clarity of the typeface and the quality of the paper are superb, and the cover artwork is stunning. Brilliant new editions of two of George Eliot's timeless classics. * Books Monthly *

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeorge Eliot’s last novel, published in 1876, weaves together two stories, one about Gwendolen Harleth, the spoilt beauty who marries for money, the other concerning the mysterious hero of the title whose search for his true destiny leads him towards Zionism. All Eliot’s great themes – moral choice, the role of chance, the interaction of characters with their environment – are worked out with her incomparable power, and many readers have agreed with F. R. Leavis that the first section of the novel is the greatest achievement in English fiction.

Read more less

Book SynopsisTrade Review"Carlisle has done a beautiful job editing George Eliot’s translation and providing a scholarly apparatus. . . . This is the edition that George Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics has long deserved, and that we have long needed."---Steven Nadler, La Vie des Idées"This edition will be of most interest to scholars of Eliot seeking more insight into the influence of Spinoza’s thought on her literary work." * Choice *"Readers and lovers of George Eliot owe a large debt of gratitude to Clare Carlisle and Princeton University Press for their fine new edition of Eliot’s translation of Benedict de Spinoza’s Ethics (1677)."---Thomas Albrecht, Women's Writing"For this volume to be truly worthwhile, the significance of the translation must be revealed, and to do this, the biographical, literary, and philosophical context in which the translation came to be needs to be explored and analysed. And Carlisle succeeds splendidly in all these respects."---Michael Della Rocca, Mind"Carlisle offers us an outstanding introductory essay in which she contextualizes the slow travel of Spinoza among English intellectuals in the early to mid-decades of the nineteenth century. . . . With her philosophical and poetic sensitivity to these two seventeenth- and nineteenth-century thinkers, Carlisle reminds us that rather than tracing direct lines of influence, today’s historical criticism might be ready to think in terms of ‘cosmic affinities’. . . . The notion of a ‘spiritual friendship’ is not what I expected to find in this new edition of a long-translated Spinoza, but Carlisle inspires and challenges us to recognize and value ‘the subtle power of a certain tie between two human beings, which is somehow sacred, a rich source of meaning.’"---Ilana M. Blumberg, George Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. This novel, 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.

Read more less

Book SynopsisMiddlemarch 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-nineteenth century. Henry James described Middlemarch as a treasure-house of detail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed George Eliot's masterpiece as one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'

Read more less

Book SynopsisCarpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire’s son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur’s seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris. A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.Trade Review“Adam Bede has taken its place among the actual experiences and endurances of my life.” —Charles Dickens

Read more less

Book SynopsisPenguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online.Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers'' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.The Mill on the Floss, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of presen

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith an Introduction by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, 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.

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhen the young nobleman Harold Transome returns to England from the colonies with a self-made fortune, he scandalizes the town of Treby Magna with his decision to stand for Parliament as a Radical. But after the idealistic Felix Holt also returns to the town, the difference between Harold's opportunistic values and Holt's profound beliefs becomes apparent. Forthright, brusque and driven by a firm desire to educate the working-class, Felix is at first viewed with suspicion by many, including the elegant but vain Esther Lyon, the daughter of the local clergyman. As she discovers, however, his blunt words conceal both passion and deep integrity. Soon the romantic and over-refined Esther finds herself overwhelmed by a heart-wrenching decision: whether to choose the wealthy Transome as a husband, or the impoverished but honest Felix Holt.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWith an Introduction and Notes by Dr Carole Jones, freelance writer and researcher. George Eliot's final novel, Daniel Deronda (1876), follows the intertwining lives of the beautiful but spoiled and selfish Gwendolene Harleth and the selfless yet alienated Daniel Deronda, as they search for personal and vocational fulfilment and sympathetic relationship. Set largely in the degenerate English aristocratic society of the 1860s, Daniel Deronda charts their search for meaningful lives against a background of imperialism, the oppression of women, and racial and religious prejudice. Gwendolen's attempts to escape a sadistic relationship and atone for past actions catalyse her friendship with Deronda, while his search for origins leads him, via Judaism, to a quest for moral growth. Eliot's radical dual narrative constantly challenges all solutions and ensures that the novel is as controversial now, as when it first appeared.

Read more less

Book Synopsis150th ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZADIE SMITH Discover one of the most admired, best loved and influential novels in the history of English literature. 'If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life...'Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world.Middlemarch contains all of life: the rich and the poor, the conventional and the radical, literature and science, politics and romance, but above all it gives us a vision of what lies within the human heart.VINTAGE CLASSICS 150th ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITIONGeorge Eliot's novel was first published in eight instalments, in an innovative new style of serialisation. The earliest part, entitled MIDDLEMARCH, Book 1 - Miss Brooke, was published on 1st December 1871. It was an instant commercial and critical success, and continues to captivate readers 150 years later.**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**Trade ReviewPerhaps the greatest novel of them all... An enormous canvas and a vast and poignant range of character...a marvellous portrait of nineteenth-century provincial life -- Joanna Trollope * Guardian *In Middlemarch George Eliot's serious intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been capable of - a picture of society as an organic, living, breathing synthesis - order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride and humility, charity and greed -- Kate AtkinsonMiddlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people -- Virginia WoolfAnother great romantic story, in which the adorable intellectually pretentious heroine makes a disastrous marriage to a desiccated fossil before finding true love with a penniless somebody -- Jilly CooperShe had such power, and she knew she had. And such courage -- A. S. Byatt * Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisHarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.'Set in the agricultural town of Raveloe in the English countryside, Silas Marner is a tragic figure. Exiled from a religious community because of a wrongful accusation of theft, he works from day to day as a weaver, saving his money and living a lonely life as a recluse.It is only when his money is stolen and a small orphan girl, Eppie appears in his life that Silas's fortunes begin to change and he truly begins to learn what it means to regain his faith in life.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA heartwarming and poignant tale of a lonely man brought back to life and faith. Silas Marner lives a friendless and isolated existence near the country village of Raveloe, hoarding his gold. One night his fortune is stolen and Silas loses everything he holds dear. But then the golden-haired child Eppie appears in his home, and Silas begins to reform bonds of faith and human connectedness that he once renounced forever. Trade ReviewA great novel of unquenchable optimism and boundless humanity * Guardian *It is a book that lifts your heart, makes you feel spiritually enriched and persuades you of the potential goodness of human nature * Daily Mail *Eliot's finest pastoral tale... notable for the sharpness of its rural detail, its tactful symbolism and its variation between high melodrama and broad comedy * Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeorge Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) made her fictional debut when SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine' in 1857. These stories contain Eliot's earliest studies of what became enduring themes in her great novels: the impact of religious controversy and social change in provincial life, and the power of love to transform the lives of individual men and women. 'Adam Bede' was soon to appear and bring George Eliot fame and fortune. In the meantime the SCENES won acclaim from a discerning readership including Charles Dickens: ' I hope you will excuse my writing to you to express my admiration...The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humour and the pathos of those stories, I have never seen the like of.'

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisPretty Hetty Sorrel is loved by the village carpenter Adam Bede, but her head is turned by the attentions of the fickle young squire. His dalliance with the dairymaid affects the lives of many in their small rural community. This new edition of Eliot's pioneering classic of social realism uses the definitive Clarendon text.Trade Reviewthis was a wonderful novel, layered and beautiful and complex. The fact that I wanted there to be even more of it is a testimony to how good it was. * Jenny Brown, Shelf Love *

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn Middlemarch, in the heart of England, Dorothea wants to change the world and Dr Lydgate hopes to make great scientific discoveries. But after disastrous marriages, they both lose control of their lives. Can they ever achieve their dreams? Middlemarch is generally considered to be one of the greatest novels in the English language.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisRaised in the idyllic setting of Dorlcote Mill, the wild and wilful Maggie Tulliver adores her elder brother Tom and is forever trying to gain the approbation of her parents. Yet, as she grows older and the family struggle under the weight of severe pecuniary difficulties, she becomes increasingly caught between the divergent expectations of the four men in her life: a doting father, an obdurate and vengeful brother, a good-looking and frivolous suitor and an earnest old playmate who happens to be the son of her father and brother’s sworn enemy. Tragic and affecting, and drawing heavily on George Eliot’s own rural upbringing and relationship with her brother, The Mill on the Floss is one of literature’s finest evocations of childhood and adolescence, and introduces, in Maggie Tulliver, one of the most beloved heroines in the English canon.Trade ReviewNo writer ever lived who had anything like her power of manifold, but disinterested and impartially observant sympathy. If Sophocles or Cervantes had lived in the light of our culture… George Eliot might have had a rival. -- Lord Acton

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhen the weaver Silas Marner is wrongly accused of crime and expelled from his community, he becomes a miser and vows to turn his back on the world. But an etraordinary sequence of events, including the appearance of a tiny child in his cottage, melts Silas's heart and transforms his life. George Eliot's tender pastoral is at once a realistic story of rural life and a symbolic drama of sin and repentance, Written in her simplest style, it paints a vivid picture of a rural life long since vanished.

Read more less

a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. Although the shortest of George Eliot's novels, Silas Marner is one of her most admired and loved works. It tells the sad story of the unjustly exiled Silas Marner - a handloom linen weaver of Raveloe in the agricultural heartland of England - and how he is restored to life by the unlikely means of the orphan child Eppie. Silas Marner is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader's attention until the last page as Eppie's bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne of the most famous novelists in the English literary canon, the likes of Middlemarch and Silas Marner are household names, but Eliot’s essays are often overlooked. This collection brings together some of her most important essays and seeks to celebrate her non-fiction writing. In ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’ Eliot states a desire – some few years before her best-known works – to turn her hand to novel-writing, and decries the trivial nature of contemporary writers, setting out a manifesto for good writing. In ‘Woman in France’ she considers the history of women’s writing, and the complications women face in order to write – something Eliot knew much about herself, adopting a male name to publish the work she did not publish anonymously. Taken together, this collection gives a rare and valuable insight into the author’s writing, and shines a light on her pioneering subtle form of feminism.Trade Review'As one comes back to (Eliot’s) books after years of absence they pour out, even against our expectation, the same store of energy and heat, so that we want more than anything to idle in the warmth.' (Virginia Woolf)

Read more less

Book SynopsisDiscover George Eliot's powerful tragedy about the struggle between head and heart.**As Heard on BBC Radio 4** Maggie and Tom Tulliver are both wilful, passionate children, and their relationship has always been tempestuous. As they grow up together on the banks of the River Floss, Tom''s self-righteous stubbornness and Maggie''s emotional intensity increasingly brings them into conflict, particularly when Maggie''s beauty sparks some ill-fated attachments. George Eliot''s story of a brother and sister bound together by their errors and affections is told with tenderness, energy and a profound understanding of human nature. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARINA LEWYCKA ''George Eliot is the greatest British novelist of any age'' Daily MailTrade ReviewIt was my first really grown-up book, but it is the book that wrings my heart and I feel I bump into elements of it all my life * Independent *A rich, gripping tragedy...narrative energy and emotional intelligence * Mail on Sunday *If I had an imaginary friend, Maggie was it. I loved her, I laughed with her, I agonised about her problems, I cried over her . . . and I still do...George Eliot's understanding of human nature is profound...the greatest British novelist of any age * Daily Mail *Maggie's dilemma is one that pervades much of Eliot's writing: the dilemma of head versus heart, the woman's struggle to be taken seriously as an intellect while coping with the demands of uninvited passion... Eliot dealt in human relationships and she was a mistress of the art * The Times *

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe best-known and most autobiographical of George Eliot’s novels is now available as a Norton Critical Edition.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisAdam Bede is George Eliot's ( Mary Ann Evans), first novel published in 1859. The story is laid in a village Hayslope. There are youthful and lively characters, in a quest of true love. Adam Bede is a young carpenter lives in this village. He is an honest and hardworking man so, that his master Jonathan Burger choose him for his daughter. But Adam loves a charming and pretty girl Hetty Sorel. Hetty is unaware of Adam's love, she is interested in Captain Arthur Donnithrown. Adam's brother loves Hetty's cousin Dinah Morris, she is a Methodist preacher. For his love Adam confronts with Arthur and as a agreement he leaves Hetty. Adam and Hetty's marriage is settled but before the marriage she came to know about her pregnancy. In fear of social consequences, she leaves the village, wanders in search of Arthur. She delivers the baby but unfortunately she dies. Hetty is found guilty and imprisoned. Eventually, Adam and Dinah realize their love bonds, they pass out their life in peace and happiness.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels That Shaped Our World''''One of the few English novels written for grown-up people'' Virginia WoolfGeorge Eliot''s nuanced and moving novel is a masterly evocation of connected lives, changing fortunes and human frailties in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past.Edited with an Introduction and notes by ROSEMARY ASHTONTrade Review"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative."--V. S. Pritchett

Read more less

Book SynopsisWriting at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in Middlemarch a concept of life and society free of the past's dogma yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeorge Eliot's Victorian masterpiece: a magnificent portrait of a provincial town and its inhabitantsGeorge Eliot’s novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel—the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town’s equilibrium—Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea’s husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to exposTrade Review"One of the few English novels written for grown-up people" -- Virginia Woolf"The most profound, wise and absorbing of English novels...and, above all, truthful and forgiving about human behavior." -- Hermione Lee

Read more less

Book SynopsisAs Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses everything and becomes trapped in an oppressive marriage, Deronda''s fortunes take a different turn. After a dramatic encounter with the young Jewish woman Mirah, he becomes involved in a search for her lost family and finds himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with Jewish aspirations and identity. ''I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else'', wrote George Eliot of her last and most ambitious novel, and in weaving her plot strands together she created a bold and richly textured picture of British society and the Jewish experience within it.Trade Review“Daniel Deronda is a startling and unexpected novel . . . it is a cosmic myth, a world history, and a morality play.” —A. S. Byatt

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Lifted Veil (1859) is now one of the most widely read and critically discussed of Eliot's works.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFalsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls across his threshold. About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. Combining the qualities of a fable with a rich evocation of rural life in the early yeTable of ContentsIntroduction Note on the Text Select Bibliography A Chronology of George Eliot Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe Selected Variants Explanatory Notes

Read more less

Book SynopsisIntroduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. 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-nineteenth century. Henry James described Middlemarch as a ‘treasurehouse of detail’ while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed George Eliot’s masterpiece as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.

Read more less

Book SynopsisDorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world.Trade ReviewPerhaps the greatest novel of them all... An enormous canvas and a vast and poignant range of character...a marvellous portrait of nineteenth-century provincial lifeIn Middlemarch George Eliot's serious intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been capable of - a picture of society as an organic, living, breathing synthesis - order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride and humility, charity and greed.

Read more less

Book Synopsis''she felt herself standing at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything to win much''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 especial relevance to the dominant issues of the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Read more less

Book SynopsisOne of the BBC''s ''100 Novels That Shaped Our World''The Penguin English Library Edition of Middlemarch by George Eliot''She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings - that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigour of irresistible day''George Eliot''s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as ''one of the few English novels written for adult people''.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeorge Eliot''s tale of a solitary miser gradually redeemed by the joy of fatherhood, Silas Marner is edited with an introduction and notes by David Carroll in Penguin Classics. Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of Eppie, the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot''s favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life. This text uses the Cabinet edition, revised by George Eliot in 1878. David Carroll''s introduction is complemented by the original Penguin Classics edition introduction by Q.D. Leavis. Mary Ann Evans (1819-80) began her literary career as a translator, and later editor, of the Westminster Review. In 1857, she published Scenes of Clerical Life, the first of eight novels she would publish under the name of ''George Eliot'', including The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. If you enjoyed Silas Marner, you might like Nathaniel Hawthorne''s The Scarlet Letter, also available in Penguin Classics. ''I think Silas Marner holds a higher place than any of the author''s works. It is more nearly a masterpiece; it has more of that simple, rounded, consummate aspect ... which marks a classical work'' Henry JamesTrade Review"I think Silas Marner holds a higher place than any of the author's works. It is more nearly a masterpiece; it has more of that simple, rounded, consummate aspect. . .which marks a classical work."—Henry James

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Penguin English Library Edition of Silas Marner by George EliotGod gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you''ve no right to her!Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot''s favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Read more less