Product Details

• Actors: Ben Kingsley, Jenny Agutter, Juliet Aubrey, Douglas Hodge, Robert Hardy
• Directors: Anthony Page, Giles Foster
• Writers: Giles Foster, Andrew Davies, George Eliot, Louis Marks, Maggie Wadey
• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 5
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Worldwide
• DVD Release Date: April 17, 2007
• Run Time: 993 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000M2E32C
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,867 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The George Eliot Collection (Middlemarch / Daniel Deronda / Silas Marner / Adam Bede / The Mill on the Floss)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The next collection in the successful BBC Classics line comes to life with an assortment of all-star casts in five of George Eliot's beautifully astute literary works, all lovingly portrayed in critically acclaimed productions from the BBC. This 5-disc set includes Adam Bede, Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.
Running Time: 994 min.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great study of the Period, July 6, 2007

By 

Nancy C. De Young "darthmader" (Fairfax, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The George Eliot Collection (Middlemarch / Daniel Deronda / Silas Marner / Adam Bede / The Mill on the Floss) (DVD)

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) penned many stories and all are worth reading. These wonderful performances do justice to her work. No expense looks spared and the locations are so atmospheric that it all adds to the strong story lines and character development. It is a collection of Victorian life studies worth owning. There is an additional feature called A Scandalous Life...guess who...talk about a woman with real courage...she lived her own life against all the constraints of her time which is hard to fathom in today's world of "free everything". Women lived confined...most authors of the day were men...women wrote romances, so Mary Anne created her "George Eliot" to be taken seriously. You will recognize many of the performers including Sir Ben Kingsley as Silas Marner. The price is great for the set...you won't be disappointed!

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The George Eliot Collection, May 13, 2007

By 

Leonie Ganivet "Priestess11" (Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The George Eliot Collection (Middlemarch / Daniel Deronda / Silas Marner / Adam Bede / The Mill on the Floss) (DVD)

Fabulous! Couldn't stop viewing until I'd gone through all the DVD's.
Very fine adaptations of books by a very fine Victorian novelist.
I highly recommend this collection.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3 stellar productions make this a value set, February 9, 2010

By 

Z Hayes (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The George Eliot Collection (Middlemarch / Daniel Deronda / Silas Marner / Adam Bede / The Mill on the Floss) (DVD)

George Eliot is one of my favorite authors of English literature, and my favorite of her novels is Middlemarch. This collection contains five BBC adaptations of her works, i.e. Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner, Adam Bede, and The Mill on the Floss. I shall review them based on my perceptions of which were the best adaptations of the works:

Middlemarch (1994)
This 1994 BBC adaptation of Middlemarch is well-cast. Douglas Hodge plays Lydgate, a doctor who arrives in the provincial town of Middlemarch intent on setting up a new hospital. Juliet Aubrey portrays Dorothea, a strong-willed and independent minded woman who is determined to improve lives. When these two young people collide, their lives change in a manner that they had never envisioned. This adaptation, thanks to an excellent script by Andrew Davies (who also penned the script for the glorious 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle) and the great cast, bring the life of a town on the brink of the Industrial Revolution to vivid life. There's also strong performances by Rufus Sewell, Patrick Malahide, etc. `Middlemarch' never plods but engages the viewer's interest with its sense of realism and romance. As a fan of the novel, I was greatly pleased by this adaptation.

Daniel Deronda (2002)
This BBC adaptation is based on George Eliot's novel of the same name . The main character Daniel Deronda[Hugh Dancy], is a young man of unknown parentage who is the adopted son of a wealthy man, Sir Hugo, and has all the trappings of wealth, yet yearns for a 'real' purpose and searches for his identity. When the story begins, we are shown a scene where a beautiful woman [Romola Garai] is gambling at the roulette table and when Daniel [Hugh Dancy] stares at her, her winning streak comes to an abrupt end. She is intrigued by him, yet refuses to be introduced to him.
We are then shown a flashback to months earlier when the beauty, a Ms Gwendolyn is shown to be the toast of society, and is desired by the men of her society, both young and old, rich and not so rich. Gwendolyn typifies the spoilt young rich woman who tells her mother 'I hate everyone!' and posseses a fiery temperament. She attracts the particular attentions of Mr Grandcourt [Hugh Bonneville] who hides a malevolent and cruel streak beneath his sophisticated and attentive exterior. When she finds out a scandalous truth about him, Gwen flees to Europe before news that her family fortunes have been lost brings her back into Grandcourt's circle again.
Daniel's story is also no less compelling - he goes boating one day and saves a young woman who has attempted suicide. The young lady turns out to be a gifted singer and Jewess, Mirah Lapidoth [Jodhi May] who is in despair for her attempts to find her long lost mother and brother have been in vain. Daniel sends her to a friend's home to be nursed and taken care of, and pays all her expenses whilst trying to help her find her family. In the process, he inadvertently comes into contact with people whom he feels a strange affinity for and this leads him to uncover the truth of his own origins.
The action in this drama is non-stop - but I am not referring to the swashbuckling sort of action, rather the intensity of emotions and unfolding of the story of the two main characters - Daniel and Gwendolyn. Their stories though different, are also parallel for fate brings them together again. What happens to these two characters forms the backbone of the story and makes for compelling viewing. Hugh Dancy and Romola Garai do an excellent job as the leads, and the other characters are also equally credible in their roles. Hugh Bonneville makes an appropriately revolting villain, and Jodhi May plays the role of the impoverished yet gifted singer ably. The sets and score are simply beautiful as are the scenes of the English countryside and also other exotic locations.

The Mill on the Floss (1978)
This eight-part BBC adaptation of George Eliot's novel is one of the most faithful adaptations (I also liked the 1997 abbreviated version starring Emily Watson as Maggie Tulliver). This is at heart a story about tangled relationships and the fragility and fickleness of the human heart. Set in Lincolnshire in the 19th century, it explores the relationship between the Tulliver siblings, Maggie (Pippa Guard) and Tom (Christopher Blake), and of how their lives get tangled with that of their neighbor's Phillip Wakem (Anton Lesser). The hunchbacked Wakem's intellectuality attracts Maggie's interest, though Wakem is the one who becomes besotted. The fact that both patriarchs are bitter enemies and Tom disapproves, makes things worse. Personally, I found this story to be one of the most complex of Eliot's works, and really quite tragic. The production qualities are rather low-budget but this is quite a faithful adaptation.

Silas Marner (1985) & Adam Bede (1992)
I confess that the last two adaptations, i.e. Silas Marner (1985) and Adam Bede (1991) are not my favorites, and that has more to do with the fact that I've never been enamored of the novels themselves. Sir Ben Kingsley does acquit himself well though in the title role of Silas Marner, who despite having led a reclusive life for many years, changes dramatically when he decides to raise a motherless infant girl whom he names Eppie. Kingsley's performance is both touching and heartbreaking.
As for Adam Bede, the main shortcoming of this adaptation is the fact that it is too short, not to mention dull, and could have done with better casting. Iain Glen plays Adam Bede, a brash and arrogant young man and the role of Hetty the attractive farmgirl is played by Patsy Kensit (a poor casting choice). The role of Dinah is well-portrayed by Susannah Harker, and watching these characters collide makes for an interesting viewing experience though I did feel this was a weak adaptation of the novel.

Final verdict - this set is worth getting for fans of BBC period dramas, and those who love George Eliot's works.