Combining humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism, this is an unsentimental, yet affectionate portrait of rural life. Its protagonist, a man wrongly accused and exiled is given a chance to achieve true happiness through his care of an orphaned girl.

This text is an updated edition of George Eliot's classic tale. The novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community.

Writing at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in Middlemarch (1871-2) the quintessential Victorian novel, a concept of life and society free from the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age. In a panoramic sweep of English life during thr years leading up to the First Reform

It came to me first of all, quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by my recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment. Falsely accused, cut off from his past, Silas the weaver is reduced to a spider-like existence, endlessly weaving his web and ...

In this story the author recreates her own childhood through the story of the gifted Maggie Tulliver and her spoilt, selfish brother. Though tragic in its outcome, this comic novel combines vivid images of family life with a portrait of the heroine.

'But it's bad - it's bad,' Mr Tulliver added - 'a woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll turn to trouble, I doubt.' Rebellious and affectionate, Maggie Tulliver is always in trouble. Recalling her own experiences as a girl, George Eliot describes Maggie's turbulent childhood with a sympathetic engagement that makes the early chapters of The Mill on the Floss among the most immediately ...

Dorothea is beautiful and rebellious and has married the wrong man. Lydgate is an ambitious doctor and has married the wrong woman. They long to make a positive difference in the world. But they and other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world.

Contains novels such as: Middlemarch , a tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love; The Mill on the Floss , a masterpiece of ambiguity in which moral choice is subjected to the hypocrisy of the Victorian age; and Silas Marner , a story of the unjustly exiled linen weaver, Silas Marner of Raveloe.

New edition.

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

Daniel Deronda, the last of Eliot's novels, is the final and comprehensive expression of her idealism. It is presented for the World's Classics series in Graham Handley's superb Clarendon edition, with a new introduction and notes.

Discusses four stage and film adaptations which demonstrate how contemporary dramatists have transformed well-known novels. The novels are Jane Austen's Persuasion , Charles Dicken's Great Expectations , Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter .

Part of the Collector's Library series, this book's Afterword is by the well-known author, writer and journalist, Ned Halley. It features a brief biography of the author and a reading list.

Pretty 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.

'Silas Marner' is a classic tale of familial love and loyalty, reward and punishment, and above all humble friendships. Introduced afresh by renowned novelist Jane Feaver.

Includes Middlemarch read by Hannah Gordon, Mill on the Floss read by Hannah Gordon, Silas Marner read by Geraldine James, and Adam Bede read by Hannah Gordon.

A story which evokes a bygone rural life, and is charged with a personal passion that intensifies the novel's outer dramas of seduction and betrayal and inner dramas of moral growth and redemption.

When Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot's first novel, was published anonymously in 1857, it was immediately recognized, in the words of Saturday Review, as 'the production of a peculiar and remarkable writer'. The three stories that make up the Scenes, 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', 'Mr Gilfil's Love Story', and 'Janet's Repentance', intriguingly foreshadow George Eliot's ...