Middlemarch

The 150th Anniversary Edition introduced by Zadie Smith

Perhaps the greatest novel of them all... An enormous canvas and a vast and poignant range of character...a marvellous portrait of nineteenth-century provincial life

In Middlemarch George Eliot's serious intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been capable of - a picture of society as an organic, living, breathing synthesis - order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride and humility, charity and greed

Middlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people

Another great romantic story, in which the adorable intellectually pretentious heroine makes a disastrous marriage to a desiccated fossil before finding true love with a penniless somebody

She had such power, and she knew she had. And such courage 

George Eliot (Author) George Eliot was born in Nuneaton on 22nd November 1819. Baptized Mary Anne Evans, Eliot chose to write using a male pen name. She was sent away to school but returned when her mother died in 1836.She later moved to Coventry with her father.After her father's death she became the Assistant Editor of the Westminster Review in 1851. She also met George Henry Lewes this year and they became partners for the rest of his life. Lewes was already married, although he and his wife both considered their relationship to be an open one, but he and Eliot set up home together, much to the dismay of polite London society. 
 
In 1857 Eliot published Amos Barton in Blackwood's Magazine and in 1859 her novel Adam Bede was published to great acclaim.Her first attempt to write Middlemarch, her most famous novel, ended in failure. Abandoning it, she began a short novella entitled Miss Brooke which was eventually integrated into the final version of Middlemarch. The novel was published serially in eight parts in 1871. Lewes died in 1878 and Eliot married again in 1880. Her husband, John Walter Cross was an American who was twenty years her junior. George Eliot died on 22nd December 1880 at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and is buried in Highgate Cemetery next to Lewes. Zadie Smith (Introducer) Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives. The Fraud is her first historical novel.

150th ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZADIE SMITH 
 
Discover one of the most admired, best loved and influential novels in the history of English literature. 
 
'If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life...' 
 
Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they, and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their places in the world. 
 
Middlemarch contains all of life: the rich and the poor, the conventional and the radical, literature and science, politics and romance, but above all it gives us a vision of what lies within the human heart. 
 
VINTAGE CLASSICS 150th ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITION 
George Eliot's novel was first published in eight instalments, in an innovative new style of serialisation. The earliest part, entitled MIDDLEMARCH, Book 1 - Miss Brooke, was published on 1st December 1871. It was an instant commercial and critical success, and continues to captivate readers 150 years later. 
 
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

Silas Marner

A heartwarming and poignant tale of a lonely man brought back to life and faith

A great novel of unquenchable optimism and boundless humanity

It is a book that lifts your heart, makes you feel spiritually enriched and persuades you of the potential goodness of human nature

Eliot's finest pastoral tale... notable for the sharpness of its rural detail, its tactful symbolism and its variation between high melodrama and broad comedy

George Eliot was born in Nuneaton on 22nd November 1819. Baptized Mary Anne Evans, Eliot chose to write using a male pen name. She was sent away to school but returned when her mother died in 1836.She later moved to Coventry with her father.After her father's death she became the Assistant Editor of the Westminster Review in 1851. She also met George Henry Lewes this year and they became partners for the rest of his life. Lewes was already married, although he and his wife both considered their relationship to be an open one, but he and Eliot set up home together, much to the dismay of polite London society. 
 
In 1857 Eliot published Amos Barton in Blackwood's Magazine and in 1859 her novel Adam Bede was published to great acclaim.Her first attempt to write Middlemarch, her most famous novel, ended in failure. Abandoning it, she began a short novella entitled Miss Brooke which was eventually integrated into the final version of Middlemarch. The novel was published serially in eight parts in 1871. Lewes died in 1878 and Eliot married again in 1880. Her husband, John Walter Cross was an American who was twenty years her junior. George Eliot died on 22nd December 1880 at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and is buried in Highgate Cemetery next to Lewes.

A heartwarming and poignant tale of a lonely man brought back to life and faith. 
 
 Silas Marner lives a friendless and isolated existence near the country village of Raveloe, hoarding his gold. One night his fortune is stolen and Silas loses everything he holds dear. But then the golden-haired child Eppie appears in his home, and Silas begins to reform bonds of faith and human connectedness that he once renounced forever. 
 
 'A great novel of unquenchable optimism and boundless humanity' Guardian

The Mill on the Floss

A powerful and dramatic tragedy about the struggle between head and heart

It was my first really grown-up book, but it is the book that wrings my heart and I feel I bump into elements of it all my life

A rich, gripping tragedy...narrative energy and emotional intelligence

If I had an imaginary friend, Maggie was it. I loved her, I laughed with her, I agonised about her problems, I cried over her . . . and I still do...George Eliot's understanding of human nature is profound...the greatest British novelist of any age

Maggie's dilemma is one that pervades much of Eliot's writing: the dilemma of head versus heart, the woman's struggle to be taken seriously as an intellect while coping with the demands of uninvited passion... Eliot dealt in human relationships and she was a mistress of the art

Mary Anne Evans was born near Nuneaton on 22 November 1819. She adopted the pseudonym George Eliot when she began her writing career. In her youth she was heavily influenced by her evangelical teachers but she later broke with orthodox religion. After she moved to Coventry with her father in 1841, she undertook the task of translating D.F. Strauss's controversial book Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1846) for Charles Bray. After her father's death she moved to London and helped to edit the radical journal the Westminster Review from 1851 to 1854. In 1851 she also met the journalist George Henry Lewes and, despite Lewes's marriage, they became partners for the rest of his life. In 1854 Lewes and Eliot openly set up home together, a scandalous arrangement by the social standards of the day. 
 
In 1857 Eliot published Scenes from Clerical Life in Blackwood's Magazine and in 1859 her novel Adam Bede was published to great acclaim and established her as a bestselling author. Her most famous novel, Middlemarch was published serially in 1871. Lewes died in 1878 and, in 1880, Eliot married John Walter Cross, an American who was twenty years her junior. George Eliot died on 22 December 1880 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery next to Lewes.

Discover George Eliot’s powerful tragedy about the struggle between head and heart. 
 
**As Heard on BBC Radio 4** 
 
 Maggie and Tom Tulliver are both wilful, passionate children, and their relationship has always been tempestuous. As they grow up together on the banks of the River Floss, Tom's self-righteous stubbornness and Maggie's emotional intensity increasingly brings them into conflict, particularly when Maggie's beauty sparks some ill-fated attachments. George Eliot's story of a brother and sister bound together by their errors and affections is told with tenderness, energy and a profound understanding of human nature. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARINA LEWYCKA 
 
 'George Eliot is the greatest British novelist of any age' Daily Mail

Daniel Deronda

George Eliot's final novel is an extraordinary, keen and yet tender examination of two very different lives.

Daniel Deronda...is written with an understanding of egoism that no one except Proust has ever matched, and a calm assurance of style that sends a shiver of terrified sympathy down my spine.

From Adam Bede to Daniel Deronda, she questioned her times. She plumbed ideas, politics, religion, race, and above all the vagaries of the heart

700 pages of intellectual thrills. Watch out for the amazing women: Lydia Glasher, the abandoned mistress baying for revenge, and Alcharisi, the singer who gives up her son to pursue her career

There is not a page of Daniel Deronda that is not marked with intelligence, and a few are as queer and perceptive as any I've read

Daniel Deronda must surely rank high among works of literature that (excluding the Bible and other religious texts) have had the greatest effect on the world

George Eliot's final novel is an extraordinary, keen and yet tender examination of two very different lives. 
 
A beautiful young woman stands poised over the gambling tables in an expensive hotel. She is aware of, and resents, the gaze of an unusual young man, a stranger, who seems to judge her, and find her wanting. The encounter will change her life. 
 
The strange young man is Daniel Deronda, brought up with his own origins shrouded in mystery, searching for a compelling outlet for his singular talents and remarkable capacity for empathy. Deronda's destiny will change the lives of many. 
 
 ‘There is not a page of Daniel Deronda that is not marked with intelligence, and a few are as queer and perceptive as any I've read’ Sunday Times

Adam Bede

A tale of rural tragedy and redemption, George Eliot's first novel

A disconcerting mixture of High Victorian and snappily contemporary. The sentences tend to be massive, slow-moving but deadly accurate: the characters' motivations are dissected, the moral puzzles presented with great clarity

The whole country life that the story is set in, is so real, and so droll and genuine, and yet so selected and polished by art, that I cannot praise it enough to you

Discover George Eliot’s first novel, a tale of rural tragedy and redemption. 
 
 It may seem like an old tale: the beautiful village girl, her faithful admirer, a country squire's seduction. But seen through the eyes of any of its players, the old tale becomes one of fresh heartbreak, innocent hopes, best intentions gone awry, and better selves lost and restored. George Eliot's first novel shows all her humane intelligence and intimate knowledge of the richness and complexity of ordinary life.

The Lifted Veil

'Why did she stand before me with the candle in her hand, with her cruel contemptuous eyes fixed on me, and the glittering serpent, like a familiar demon, on her breast?' 
 
In this dark novella of Victorian horror, George Eliot explores clairvoyance, fate and the possibility of life after death. 
 
One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

George Eliot

Abridged Edition

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
The Mill on the Floss, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. 
 
Maggie lives with her brother Tom in a mill by the river Floss. Maggie loves Tom and Tom loves Maggie, but they are very different. When Tom's father loses all his money, Maggie and Tom must try and help their parents to keep the mill.

George Eliot

Penguin Readers Level 4: The Mill on the Floss (ELT Graded Reader)

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