Silas Marner (with an Introduction by Esther Wood) by George Eliot

Silas Marner (with an Introduction by Esther Wood) by George Eliot

First published in 1861, Silas Marner is George Eliot's tale of an English linen weaver. When Silas is falsely accused of stealing the funds of the small Calvinist congregation to which he belongs, his fiancE breaks off their engagement and he flees in shame to the English Midlands settling near the rural village of Raveloe in Warwickshire. Here he lives alone quietly plying his trade in the pursuit of gold. After awhile Silas has amassed a small fortune but when he returns one day to his cottage he finds his stash of gold stolen. Devastated by this loss, Silas sinks into a deep state of gloom. His life soon changes though when he finds a young girl resting in his home. The child's mother, Molly, is the opium addicted estranged wife of fellow villager Godfrey Cass. Silas finds Molly dead in the snow where she has laid down to rest after taking some opium. Silas adopts the young girl whom he names Eppie. Despite the loss of his fortune Silas finds a new treasure in the golden-haired young girl, giving his life a new meaning. Eliot's tale is a relatively simple one however it is noted for its realism concerning human relationships and in how it deals with the themes of religion in society, custom and tradition, status and community, and the impact of industrialization in 19th century England. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by Esther Wood.

GEORGE ELIOT was born Mary Ann Evans in Warwickshire, England, on November 22, 1819. The daughter of an estate manager, Evans spent her childhood living on the Newdigate estate in Griff House with her parents; sister, Chrissie; and brother, Isaac. Upon the death of her mother and Chrissie's marriage, she assumed charge of Griff House. After Isaac's marriage and her father's retirement, Evans went with her father to live in Coventry. Marian (as she now wrote her name) became a close friend of Charles Bray, a wealthy manufacturer who had abandoned conventional Christianity to live by his own system of ethics. Influenced by Bray, she translated David Friedrich Strauss's Life of Jesus from the German.

After her father's death, Evans went to London, where she had been offered a job as assistant editor of the Westminster Review by John Chapman, the publisher of her translation of Strauss's Life of Jesus. Here she socialized with many of the leading writers and thinkers of the day, including journalist George Henry Lewes.

Lewes's wife had deserted him and their three young sons. Because he could not obtain a divorce under English law, Lewes and Evans entered into a common-law union that would last until his death. It was Lewes who recognized Evans's literary genius and encouraged her to write fiction. Writing under the pen name George Eliot, her first story, The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton, was accepted for publication in the January 1857 issue of Blackwood's Magazine. Blackwood's accepted two more stories, Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story and Janet's Repentance, and reprinted them in the book Scenes of Clerical Life (1858).

Each new book by George Eliot was acclaimed by the critics and widely read by the public. Writing about rural life, she was primarily concerned with people's moral choices and their responsibility for their own lives. She published Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-63), Felix Holt the Radical (1866), the dramatic poem The Spanish Gypsy (1868), the sonnet sequence Brother and Sister (1869), Middlemarch (1871-72), Daniel Deronda (1876), and Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879).

After Lewe's death in 1878, George Eliot stopped writing. In 1880 she married a long-time friend, John Cross. Eliot died on December 22, 1880. Cross arranged her letters and journals into a Life, which was published in 1885.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781420955118
ISBN 10	142095511X
Title	Silas Marner (with an Introduction by Esther Wood)
Author	George Eliot
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Digireads.com
Year published	2017-05-09
Number of pages	146
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable