Silas Marner
George Eliot
Paperback
(Independently published, Nov. 12, 2019)
STORY DESCRIPTION : βSilas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, it is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community. The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. Silas Marner, a weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in Northern England. He is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds while watching over the very ill deacon. Two clues are given against Silas: a pocket knife, and the discovery in his own house of the bag formerly containing the money. There is the strong suggestion that Silas' best friend, William Dane, has framed him, since Silas had lent his pocket knife to William shortly before the crime was committed. Lots are drawn in the belief β shared by Silas β that God will direct the process and establish the truth, but they indicate that Silas is guilty. The woman Silas was to marry breaks their engagement and marries William instead. With his life shattered, his trust in God lost and his heart broken, Silas leaves Lantern Yard and the city for a rural area where he is unknown. Marner travels south to the Midlands and settles near the rural village of Raveloe in Warwickshire, where he lives isolated and alone, choosing to have only minimal contact with the residents beyond his work as a linen weaver. He devotes himself wholeheartedly to his craft and comes to adore the gold coins he earns and hoards from his weaving. One foggy night, the two bags of gold are stolen by Dunstan (Dunsey) Cass, a dissolute younger son of Squire Cass, the town's leading landowner. On discovering the theft, Silas sinks into a deep depression, despite the villagers' attempts to aid him. Dunsey immediately disappears, but the community makes little of this disappearance, since he has vanished several times before.β ----- AUTHOR DESCRIPTION : βMary Ann Evans (1819 β 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 wrote seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862β63), Middlemarch (1871β72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight. Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes. Eliot's Middlemarch has been described by the novelists Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language. While continuing to contribute pieces to the Westminster Review, Evans resolved to become a novelist, and set out a pertinent manifesto in one of her last essays for the Review, Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (1856). The essay criticised the trivial and ridiculous plots of contemporary fiction written by women. In other essays, she praised the realism of novels that were being written in Europe at the time, an emphasis on realistic storytelling confirmed in her own subsequent fiction.β