One of the most famous novelists in the English literary canon, the likes of Middlemarch and Silas Marner are household names, but Eliot's essays are often overlooked. This collection brings together some of her most important essays and seeks to celebrate her non-fiction writing. In 'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists' Eliot states a desire - some few years before her best-known works - to turn her hand to novel-writing, and decries the trivial nature of contemporary writers, setting out a manifesto for good writing. In 'Woman in France' she considers the history of women's writing, and the complications women face in order to write - something Eliot knew much about herself, adopting a male name to publish the work she did not publish anonymously. Taken together, this collection gives a rare and valuable insight into the author's writing, and shines a light on her pioneering subtle form of feminism.

Introduction and Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century. Henry James described Middlemarch as a 'treasurehouse of detail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed George Eliot's masterpiece as 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Our consciousness rarely registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us: there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the smallest sign of the bud.' Set in the agricultural town of Raveloe in the English countryside, Silas Marner is a tragic figure. Exiled from a religious community because of a wrongful accusation of theft, he works from day to day as a weaver, saving his money and living a lonely life as a recluse. It is only when his money is stolen and a small orphan girl, Eppie appears in his life that Silas's fortunes begin to change and he truly begins to learn what it means to regain his faith in life.

This novel was George Eliot's favourite. It concerns a bitter weaver who takes on a young orphan girl and gradually transforms his own life and that of the girl. The novel combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental portrait of rural English life.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbours' Rejecting the conventional narratives of the time, Middlemarch shows a realistic portrayal of Victorian village life. Peopling this ground-breaking work are Tertius Lydgate, a talented yet naive young doctor; Dorothea Brooke, stuck in a loveless marriage; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding shocking crimes from his past. An intricate story weaving together many lives, Middlemarch is described as one of the best-loved novels of all time and heralded as 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people' by Virginia Woolf. It is a richly nuanced drama that is a quintessential English classic.

Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom grow up in the Mill on the River Floss. Although Maggie adores Tom, she often finds him cruel and cold. All she wants is for life to be full and warm. The Tulliver family's traditional way of living is threatened by changes beyond their control. Will the educated world of lawyers and lawsuits destroy what generations have enjoyed? As Maggie grows into adulthood, how can she control her passionate nature? With a destiny like an unmapped river; full, deep and rapid, where will love and desire lead her? Where will it all end?

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An authoritative edition of George Eliot's elegant translation of Spinoza's greatest philosophical work In 1856, Marian Evans completed her translation of Benedict de Spinoza's Ethics while living in Berlin with the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes. This would have become the first edition of Spinoza's controversial masterpiece in English, but the translation remained unpublished because of a disagreement between Lewes and the publisher. Later that year, Evans turned to fiction writing, and by 1859 she had published her first novel under the pseudonym George Eliot. This splendid edition makes Eliot's translation of the Ethics available to today's readers while also tracing Eliot's deep engagement with Spinoza both before and after she wrote the novels that established her as one of English literature's greatest writers. Clare Carlisle's introduction places the Ethics in its seventeenth-century context and explains its key philosophical claims. She discusses George Eliot's intellectual formation, her interest in Spinoza, the circumstances of her translation of the Ethics, and the influence of Spinoza's ideas on her literary work. Carlisle shows how Eliot drew on Spinoza's radical insights on religion, ethics, and human emotions, and brings to light surprising affinities between Spinoza's austere philosophy and the rich fictional worlds of Eliot's novels. This authoritative edition demonstrates why George Eliot's translation remains one of the most compelling and philosophically astute renderings of Spinoza's Latin text. It includes notes that indicate Eliot's amendments to her manuscript and that discuss her translation decisions alongside more recent English editions.

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' 'One of the few English novels written for grown-up people' Virginia Woolf George Eliot's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly evocation of connected lives, changing fortunes and human frailties in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. Edited with an Introduction and notes by ROSEMARY ASHTON

One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' The Penguin English Library Edition of Middlemarch by George Eliot 'She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings - that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigour of irresistible day' George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as 'one of the few English novels written for adult people'. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

George Eliot's masterpiece, groundbreaking in its psychological insight into powerful clashes of obligation and desire, Middlemarch is edited with notes and an introduction by Rosemary Ashton in Penguin Classics. George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial English community prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; passionate, idealistic and penniless artist Will Ladislaw; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama.

'the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts' The greatest 'state of the nation' novel in English, Middlemarch addresses ordinary life at a moment of great social change, in the years leading to the Reform Act of 1832. Through her portrait of a Midlands town, George Eliot addresses gender relations and class, self-knowledge and self-delusion, community and individualism. Eliot follows the fortunes of the town's central characters as they find, lose, and rediscover ideals and vocations in the world. Through its psychologically rich portraits, the novel contains some of the great characters of literature, including the idealistic but naive Dorothea Brooke, beautiful and egotistical Rosamund Vincy, the dry scholar Edward Casaubon, the wise and grounded Mary Garth, and the brilliant but proud Dr Lydgate. In its whole view of a society, the novel offers enduring insight into the pains and pleasures of life with others, and explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life:. art, religion, science, politics, self, society, and, above all, human relationships. This edition uses the definitive Clarendon text.

In her third novel, reissued here in its first edition of 1861, George Eliot (1819-80) charts the life of the cataleptic, miserly weaver Silas Marner. Arriving in insular Raveloe after a wrongful expulsion from his Calvinist community in the north, Silas is a foreign and outcast figure, left alone to accumulate a useless fortune through his loom in the dawn of the new industrial age. His unhappy life is rendered unrecognisable when his fortune is stolen and he adopts a child. Eliot's first two novels, Adam Bede and Mill on the Floss, had dealt with tragedy and the injustices faced by fallen women. With its happy ending and suffusion of fairy-tale elements, Silas Marner marks a turning point in her career. Alongside this development, however, the novel continues to raise Eliot's characteristic questions about social inequalities, the effects of extreme religion, and the worth of human experience.

In her third novel, reissued here in its first edition of 1861, George Eliot (1819-80) charts the life of the cataleptic, miserly weaver Silas Marner. Arriving in insular Raveloe after a wrongful expulsion from his Calvinist community in the north, Silas is a foreign and outcast figure, left alone to accumulate a useless fortune through his loom in the dawn of the new industrial age. His unhappy life is rendered unrecognisable when his fortune is stolen and he adopts a child. Eliot's first two novels, Adam Bede and Mill on the Floss, had dealt with tragedy and the injustices faced by fallen women. With its happy ending and suffusion of fairy-tale elements, Silas Marner marks a turning point in her career. Alongside this development, however, the novel continues to raise Eliot's characteristic questions about social inequalities, the effects of extreme religion, and the worth of human experience.

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72), the German philosopher and a founding member of the Young Hegelians, a group of radical thinkers influenced by G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), was an outspoken critic of religion, and the 1841 publication of this work established his reputation. In the first part of the book he examines what he calls the 'anthropological essence' of religion, and in the second he looks at its 'false or theological essence', arguing that the idea of God is a manifestation of human consciousness. These ideas provoked strong reactions in Germany, and soon other European intellectuals wanted to read Feuerbach's book. The 1843 second edition was translated by Marian Evans (1819-80) - who would become better known by her pen name of George Eliot - and published in Britain in 1854. Evans was influenced by Feuerbach's work, and many of his humanist ideas about religion are reflected in her novels.

Best known for his brief marriage to George Eliot, John Cross (1840 1924) compiled this three-volume 'autobiography' of 1885 from his late wife's journals and letters. Eliot was never married to her long-term partner G. H. Lewes, and she courted further scandal when she married Cross, twenty years her junior, in 1880. While these volumes offer a valuable insight into Eliot's private reflections, what is perhaps most telling is the material left out or rewritten in Cross' efforts to lend his wife's unconventional life some respectability, which he does at the expense of what one reviewer described as Eliot's 'salt and spice'. George Eliot's Life will be of particular interest to scholars of nineteenth-century biography and literature. Volume 1 covers Eliot's life from 1819 to 1857, beginning with a brief sketch of her childhood and continuing with her move to Coventry, then to London, and travels to Geneva.

Best known for his brief marriage to George Eliot, John Walter Cross (1840-1924) compiled this three-volume 'autobiography' of 1885 from his late wife's journals and letters. Eliot was never married to her long-term partner G. H. Lewes, and she courted further scandal when she married Cross, twenty years her junior, in the spring of 1880. While these volumes offer a valuable insight into Eliot's private reflections, what is perhaps most telling is the material left out or rewritten in Cross' efforts to lend his wife's unconventional life some respectability, which he does at the expense of what one reviewer described as Eliot's 'salt and spice'. George Eliot's Life will be of particular interest to scholars of nineteenth-century biography and literature. Volume 3 focuses on Eliot's final years, including her later literary success, travels in Spain, the death of G. H. Lewes, and her marriage to Cross.

The German theologian David Friedrich Strauss (1808 1874) published his highly controversial The Life of Jesus in three volumes between 1835 and 1836. This translation by George Eliot is based on the fourth German edition (1840). Strauss applied strict historical method to the gospel narratives and caused scandal across the Protestant world by concluding that all miraculous elements were mythical and ahistorical. Strauss introduces Volume 1 with a survey of 'de-mythology' in Western thought. He applies modern historical and scientific criticism to the annunciation and birth narratives; the Davidic descent and genealogies of Jesus; Jesus' visit to the temple; Jesus' baptism and temptation and his relationship with John the Baptist. The volume ends with a chapter on chronology and locality in the life of Jesus. This is a key text of nineteenth-century theology that pioneered the application of historical and scientific methods to the study of religious texts.

The German theologian David Friedrich Strauss (1808 1874) first published his highly controversial The Life of Jesus in three volumes between 1835 and 1836. This translation, by George Eliot, is based on the fourth German edition (1840). In this work Strauss applied strict historical methods to the New Testament gospel narratives and caused scandal across the Protestant world by concluding that all miraculous elements in the life of Jesus were mythical and ahistorical. In volume 2 Strauss applies modern historical criticism to 'de-mythologize' the idea of Jesus as Messiah; the narratives about the disciples; the discourses in the Synoptic gospels and the Fourth Gospel; the non-miraculous events; and the miracles' narratives. This is a key text of nineteenth-century theology that pioneered the application of historical and scientific methods to the study of religions and religious texts. It is essential reading for any student of the New Testament.