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George Eliot

Adam Bede Kindle Edition

by George Eliot (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Editorial Reviews

Review

''Adam Bede has taken its place among the actual experiences and endurances of my life.'' --Charles Dickens

''A first-rate novel.'' --Times (London)

''Adam Bede was Eliot's first long novel. Its masterly realism -- evident, for example, in the recording of Derbyshire dialect -- brought to English fiction the same truthful observation of minute detail that John Ruskin was commending in the Pre-Raphaelites. But what was new in this work of English fiction was the combination of deep human sympathy and rigorous moral judgment.'' --Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Publisher

Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

"[A] superb scholarly edition.... Key to this volume is the 158-page introduction, which is full of erudition, packed with information, and concludes with a descriptive listing of editions of Adam Bede.... An indispensable purchase for all academic libraries and large public libraries."--Choice

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

?Adam Bede has taken its place among the actual experiences and endurances of my life.? ?Charles Dickens

From the Trade Paperback edition. --Charles Dickens --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER I
The Workshop

With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the end of my pen I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.

The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tent-like pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall. On a heap of those soft shavings a rough grey shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing— “Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run; Shake off dull sloth. . . . .”

Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it presently broke out again with renewed vigour—

“Let all thy converse be sincere, Thy conscience as the noonday clear.”

Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest belonged to a large-boned muscular man nearly six feet high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under strongly marked, prominent, and mobile eyebrows, indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.

It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam’s brother. He is nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in form and face. Seth’s broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his brother’s; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benignant. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is not thick and straight, like Adam’s, but thin and wavy, allowing you to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very decidedly over the brow.

The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam.

The concert of the tools and Adam’s voice was at last broken by Seth, who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed it against the wall and said—

“There! I’ve finished my door to-day, anyhow.”

The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly red-haired man, known as Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp glance of surprise—

“What! dost think thee’st finished the door?”

“Ay, sure,” said Seth, with answering surprise, “what’s awanting to’t?”

A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before—

“Why, thee’st forgot the panels.”

The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head, and coloured over brow and crown.

“Hoorray!” shouted a small lithe fellow, called Wiry Ben, running forward and seizing the door. “We’ll hang up th’ door at fur end o’ th’ shop an write on’t, ‘Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.’ Here, Jim, lend’s hould o th’ red-pot.”

“Nonsense!” said Adam. “Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You’ll mayhap be making such a slip yourself some day; you’ll laugh o’ th’ other side o’ your mouth then.”

“Catch me at it, Adam. It’ll be a good while afore my head’s full o’ th Methodies,” said Ben.

“Nay, but it’s often full o’ drink, and that’s worse.”

Ben, however, had now got the “red-pot” in his hand and was about to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an imaginary S in the air.

“Let it alone, will you?” Adam called out, laying down his tools, striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. “Let it alone, or I’ll shake the soul out o’ your body.”

Ben shook in Adam’s iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was, he didn’t mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his other shoulder, and pushing him along, pinned him against the wall. But now Seth spoke.

“Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he’s i’ the right to laugh at me.—I canna help laughing at myself.”

“I shan’t loose him, till he promises to let the door alone,” said Adam.

“Come, Ben, lad,” said Seth in a persuasive tone, “don’t let’s have a quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may’s well try to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you’ll leave the door alone, and make an end on’t.”

“I binna frighted at Adam,” said Ben, “but I donna mind sayin’ as I’ll let’t alone at yare askin’, Seth.”

“Come, that’s wise of you, Ben,” said Adam, laughing and relaxing his grasp.

They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm.

“Which was ye thinkin’ on, Seth,” he began—“the pretty parson’s face or her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panel?”

“Come and hear her, Ben,” said Seth, good-humouredly; “she’s going to preach on the Green to-night; happen ye’d get something to think on yourself then, instead o’ those wicked songs ye’re so fond on. Ye might get religion, and that ’ud be the best day’s earnings y’ ever made.”

“All i’ good time for that, Seth; I’ll think about that when I’m agoin’ to settle i’ life; bachelors doesn’t want such heavy earnins. Happen I shall do the coortin’ an’ the religion both together, as ye do, Seth; but ye wouldna ha’ me get converted an’ chop in atween ye an’ the pretty preacher, an’ carry her aff?”

“No fear o’ that, Ben; she’s neither for you nor for me to win, I doubt. Only you come and hear her, and you won’t speak lightly on her again.”

“Well, I ’n half a mind t’ ha’ a look at her to-night, if there isn’t good company at th’ Holly Bush. What’ll she tek for her text? Happen ye can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i’ time for’t. Will’t be, ‘What come ye out for to see? A prophetess? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophetess’—a uncommon pretty young woman.”

“Come, Ben,” said Adam, rather sternly, “you let the words o’ the Bible alone; you’re going too far now.”

“What! are ye a-turnin’ roun’, Adam? I thought ye war dead again th’ women preachin’, a while agoo?”

“Nay, I’m not turnin’ noway. I said nought about the women preachin’: I said, You let the Bible alone: you’ve got a jest-book, han’t you, as you’re rare and proud on? Keep your dirty fingers to that.”

“Why, y’are getting’ as big a saint as Seth. Y’are goin’ to th’ preachin to-night, I should think. Ye’ll do finely t’lead the singin’. But I dun know what Parson Irwine ’ull say at ’s gran’ favright Adam Bede a-turnin’ Methody.”

“Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I’m not a-going to turn Methodist any more nor you are—though it’s like enough you’ll turn to something worse. Mester Irwine’s got more sense nor to meddle wi’ people’s doing as they like in religion. That’s between themselves and God, as he’s said to me many a time.”

“Ay, ay; but he’s none so fond o’ your dissenters, for all that.”

“Maybe; I’m none so fond o’ Josh Tod’s thick ale, but I don’t hinder you from making a fool o’ yourself wi’t.”

There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam’s, but Seth said, very seriously,

“Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody’s religion’s like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the Methodists have got the root o’ the matter as well as the church folks.”

“Nay, Seth, lad; I’m not for laughing at no man’s religion. Let ’em follow their consciences, that’s all. Only I think it ’ud be better if their consciences ’ud let ’em stay quiet i’ the church—there’s a deal to be learnt there. And there’s such a thing as being over-speritial; we must have something beside Gospel i’ this world. Look at the canals, an’ th aqueducs, an’ th’ coal-pit engines, and Arkwright’s mills there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon. But t’ hear some o’ them preachers, you’d think as a man must be doing nothing all ’s life but shutting ’s eyes and looking what’s a-going on inside him. I know a man must have the love o’ God in his soul, and the Bible ’s God’s word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my way o looking at it: there’s the sperrit o’ God in all things and all times—weekday as well as Sunday—and i’ the great works and inventions, and i’ the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o’ jobs out o’ working hours—builds a oven for ’s wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o’ garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o’ one, he’s doing more good, and he’s just as near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning.”

“Well done, Adam!” said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to shift his planks while Adam was speaking; “that’s the best sarmunt I’ve heared this long while. By th’ same token, my wife’s a-bin a-plaguin’ on me to build her a oven this twelvemont.”

“There’s reason in what thee say’st, Adam,” observed Seth, gravely. “But thee know’st thyself as it’s hearing the preachers thee find’st so much fault with as has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un. It’s the preacher as empties th’ alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he’ll do his work none the worse for that.”

“On’y he’ll lave the panels out o’ th’ doors sometimes, eh, Seth?” said Wiry Ben.

“Ah, Ben, you’ve got a joke again me as ’ll last you your life. But it isna religion as was i’ fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more’s the pity.”

“Ne’er heed me, Seth,” said Wiry Ben, “y’ are a downright good-hearted chap, panels or no panels; an’ ye donna set up your bristles at every bit o’ fun, like some o’ your kin, as is mayhap cliverer.”

“Seth, lad,” said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself, “thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in what I said just now. Some ’s got one way o’ looking at things and some ’s got another.”

“Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean’st me no unkindness,” said Seth, “I know that well enough. Thee’t like thy dog Gyp—thee bark’st at me sometimes, but thee allays lick’st my hand after.”

All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a screw half driven in, and thrown his screw-driver into his tool- basket; Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was putting out his hand towards his paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with his work as if nothing had happened. But observing the cessation of the tools he looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

The exhilaration that comes from reading Adam Bede Owes its existence to the fact that on every page George Eliot seems absorbed in the process of spiritual discovery. The evocations of bygone rural life for which Adam Bede was so resoundingly praised on its publication in 1859 are charged with a personal passion that intensifies the novel's outer dramas of seduction and betrayal, and inner dramas of moral growth and redemption. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Leonee Ormond is Reader in English at King's College, University of London. She has published books on George du Maurier, Lord Leighton (with Richard Ormond) and J. M. Barrie. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

Eliot probes deeply into the psychology of commonplace people caught in the act of uncommon heroics. Alexandre Dumas called this novel 'the masterpiece of the century.' --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0084AMQW8
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 17, 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 820 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 538 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B08KQ1LQ45

Best Sellers Rank: #17,515 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8 in British Travel
- #42 in History of United Kingdom

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George Eliot

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Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880; alternatively "Mary Anne" or "Marian"), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.

She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. She also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.

Her 1872 work Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Swiss artist Alexandre-Louis-François d'Albert-Durade (1804-86) [Public Domain], via English Wikipedia.

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Kurt

Magnificent work of art

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 10, 2012

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***Heavy spoiler review. Only read if you have already read the novel!***

*****************************************************************************

What about Seth?!! was all I could think as I neared the end of the George Eliot novel, Adam Bede. Being a second son, and certainly not as good looking as my older brother, and a couple inches shorter no less, how could I not sympathize with Seth Bede, the younger brother who, by the amazing machinations of a brilliant writer, Mary Ann Evans, manages to let his feelings for a woman he admires dwindle away to irrelevance while simultaneously supporting his elder brother's burgeoning affection for that very same woman?

As crazy as it may sound, I am now going to try to explain why Mary Ann Evans was such a great writer, and why her subtle genius points the way to the very reality of nature itself, though it is to many an uncomfortable reality, and to some others still, a hostile, and even malevolent one. I will admit, I was rooting for Seth all the way through the novel. He was enamoured of Dinah Morris, but was keenly aware that she did not return the feeling, and yet still hopeful that in time she might come to love him and think of him in a romantic sense. How many men (and women) have lived in that kind of melancholy hopefulness? I know I have, and many times. It's not easy. In fact, it's an extremely harrowing and painful experience, and I do not recommend it to anyone. But that's the way things are. Nature, despite man's civilization and refinement, is as it always was. There are certain things that are immutable, unalterable, and constant, no matter how clever or sympathetic our race manages to become.

Evans was not a physically attractive woman herself, at least not in the common sense of the term. I am sure she was keenly aware of this, and I'm also sure that she was governed in her art by a kind of Spinozan submission and reverence to the natural order of things, and, far from letting that diminish or spoil her intelligent zest for life, she gave it exquisite expression in some of the most venerated and popular novels of all time. Adam Bede, her first novel, is a crystal clear example of such literary expression. Before I go on, I do not mean to suggest that physical appearance and personal charm are the sole criteria upon which we humans base our judgments and affections toward others; that would be narrow-minded and silly; but, whether we like it or not, such attributes do in fact exert a strong force and influence when it comes to sexual attraction. It may not be fair, but that's the way it is.

For all intents and purposes, Adam Bede is the classic alpha male, though Evans gives him a serene and genuinely sensitive side that would be entirely missing from a protagonist in a novel by Ayn Rand, another candidly plain looking woman who took Evans's honest and often sacrilegious reconciliation with nature to what many would say was an irrational extreme; but no more of that. Evans is such a good author that every reader would know that if Seth had claimed to still be holding a candle for Dinah, Adam would not have pursued her. As it happens, Seth comes to feel quite literally happy about the fact that his older brother has stolen the heart that was once the object of his affection. He is happy to be brother to Dinah and uncle to Adam's children. Many have suggested that this was sort of an authorial cheat, or foul play on the part of Evans, that in real circumstances the younger brother would most certainly be deeply hurt by the doubly-painful knowledge that not only did his beloved not find in him a man that she could love as a husband, but in fact had fallen in love with his older brother instead! Wouldn't any man be hurt by such a turn of events. I know I would.

But that's the difference between life and art. Art, in the hands of a genuinely good artist, is a means of not only understanding, appreciating, and celebrating the rich pageant of life, but also of coming to terms with painful truths and realities which a lot of us would rather not confront; and which cause certain well-intended but misgiven people to wreak nothing but havoc by the often absurd pseudo-intellectual deconstruction or denial of long confirmed fact and simple common sense.

My heart will always root for Seth, but my intellect allows me to see that Adam was the obvious object to which Dinah would fix her affection. We second-born, homelier, shorter little brothers will generally just have to deal with it, get over it, and move on.

But, wait a minute. Or, as Monty Python would say, "and now for something completely different! -

The Hetty Sorrel and Arthur Donnithorne characters, who I haven't even mentioned, are a whole 'nuther dimension in this wonderful novel, and serve to remind us, though this may sound contrary to what I've already said, that all that glitters is not gold. Which is to say, at least with respect to Hetty, physical beauty, or material perfection, does not always adorn a beautiful soul, and that the reptilian part of the brain must always be moderated by sound reason and rationality.

And that's that, and it is what it is.

And A is A ('cos God says so).

2 people found this helpful

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Ruffslitch

It's hard to read but worth it. Spoiler alert! I tell you how it ends...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 3, 2015

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George Eliot doesn't write the easiest prose to read. It took me a while to become engrossed in this book but I continued reading because I wanted to find out why the book was named after Adam and what happened to him. He appears early on as the main suitor for a ill-fated girl named Hetty; I found it difficult to like her as she persistently displayed shallow behavior. Another character named Dinah who appears early on doesn't figure as prominently as you would think with her early-and shocking-introduction as a Methodist preacher. The story revolves around these and other villagers and their relationships with one another and with the lord of the manor. This is the chief interest for me; the behind-the-scenes look at village life as read between the lines of old literature like this. Things such as cheese-making and kitting were as natural as breathing to these folk. Knitting, for example, was not something they sat down to do at the end of the day while chatting; apparently, everyone knits, even while standing around waiting for food to cook! And gossip ruled the day then, as now. Farmer's wives were not above passing judgement on each other for the quality of their butter and cheese or the deportment of their hired girls.

But back to Adam. He is in love with Hetty who is uncommonly beautiful. Her feelings toward Adam are tepid at best but then the young lord of the manor makes the mistake of favoring her, it goes to her head and Adam's chances plummet. It's a mystery to me what Adam can see in Hetty since he is a fine, upstanding citizen who is well-regarded by everyone. There aren't many girls to choose from though, and other considerations entered into romance back then; she is the niece of his very good friends who are prosperous farmers. His other romantic possibility is the daughter of his employer at the wood yard thus he must choose between marrying into a thriving business, or not, and alienating his boss. But back then people knew they were stuck in the same town so they had more sophisticated methods of conflict resolution than we do today; they didn't have the luxury of never speaking to one another again so huge emotional flare-ups were avoided. Human nature was better understood, it seems.

That doesn't stop Hetty from plunging headlong into disaster, however. Arthur is not only the young lord of the manor, but Adam's best friend, until Hetty becomes a point of contention between them. Arthur's honor fails him miserably under the spell of Hetty's beauty and results in their mutual ruin. Dinah, the ethereally-angelic preacher, is the final straw Hetty grasps at in her ruination. Under the cloak of Dinah's Christian love, Hetty manages to gain redemption before being transported instead of hanged for the crime of murdering her newborn baby.

Adam eventually marries Dinah and everyone lives happily ever after. Well, not really just happily ever after, but everyone manages to make the best of life and muddle through with some grace and mercy. We would do well today to follow their example.

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Top reviews from other countries

Denise Howard

Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover (Literally)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 29, 2020

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I had chosen a couple of these kindle free books from Amazon and realised it was a pretty hit-or-miss affair, but there again no real complaint as these books are free and I love the fact I am reading books that are from the classical and great authors. This particular book was a true hit for me as I really enjoyed it. The only difficulty for me was the obvious period of time writing at times, but by the time I had come to the end of the story, I was so invested into the characters and wanting to know what happened to them. Some of the story was deeply sad and gave a glimpse or the social attitudes of the time, which made the George Elliot (pen name) Mary Ann Evans so fascinating. This was her first novel.
I have it as a kindle book but I do look forward to re-visit this book in the future and I also am encouraged to read more by this author

One person found this helpful

pathfinder

Loved this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 5, 2019

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I have been working my way through George Elliott's books and after reading three others I found this the easiest to read and if I had known would probably have started with this one. The story and characterization is not on such a deep level as Middlemarch (although this is rated more highly ) which actually makes it a quicker and easier read. So if you are just dipping your toe into George Elliott this may be a good one to start with. I have also read Mill on the Floss which I loved and Silas Mather which if you can get through the first third is a good read too but quite a short book.

4 people found this helpful

A Liverpool Reader

Classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 16, 2021

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Didn't think Eliot's first book was going to be as good as it was.
Emotions fly throughout the book. Characters are carefully drawn and have a real feel to them!
An excellent read!

2 people found this helpful

Roman Clodia

Rural tragedy

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 3, 2010

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If you've read Middlemarch and/or Daniel Deronda, this is a very different George Eliot. More akin to The Mill on the Floss, it tells a story of rural tragedy which might have influenced Hardy, particularly in Tess.

Taking in Eliot's concerns about class, gender and education, this is a moving book that both depicts a lost world and yet involves subjects which still concern us today: a girl's choice between the exciting and staid lover, and the consequences of unthinking sex.

21 people found this helpful

HighlandWifey

Excellent read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 25, 2012

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I really enjoyed the storytelling in this book and all aspects of the frailty of human life is here. Once you adapt to the way English is written within the book then it is thoroughly engrossing.
It was an unexpected delight to experience the realities of life instead of the usual "happy endings" to which we have become accustomed over recent years. I enjoyed this so much and will read it again next year...in the full expectation that I will still learn something new about the characters.
Definitely on my all time favourite book list.

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