Romola: Illustrated
George Eliot
Paperback
(Independently published, July 31, 2020)
Book Description George Eliot's own favorite among her novels, this novel tells the story of Romola, the intelligent daughter of a blind scholar, who is falling in love with a man who is going to change her life and the politics of Florence in a way she doesn't like. Set in 15th century Florence, it is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view".Reviews "The story of this book is of a brilliant and beautiful young man (truly a hero type) who makes one small wrong decsion and from that decision his life soars upward and then downward until he is the most despicable of villians. It's a bit hard to get going in, but SO worth it!" "This is a slow-moving book, even by the standards of Victorian novels, and I understand why it's one of her least popular novels. But what a rewarding book for anyone who perseveres through its longueurs!" "I find George Eliot hard to get through, but here she inhabits the minds and mores of end of the 15th century Florence most captivatingly. There are wonderful real and fictional characters in this story of faith, betrayal, terror, corruption and selflessness. Eliot knew her Renaissance and Classical history with the result that this novel teaches as it entertains."About Author Mary Ann Evans, 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 was born in 1819 at a farmstead in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, where her father was estate manager. Mary Ann, the youngest child and a favorite of her father's, received a good education for a young woman of her day. Influenced by a favorite governess, she became a religious evangelical as an adolescent.