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  • Published: 26 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241422502
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

Silas Marner




Penguin Classics Relaunch.

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Jan Francis, star of Just Good Friends. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by David Carroll.

Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot's favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.

(c) George Eliot 1861 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

  • Published: 26 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241422502
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download

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About the author

George Eliot

George Eliot was born Mary Anne Evans in Chilvers Coton, England in 1819 on an estate managed by her father. When her mother did she left school to run the household, continuing her education alone in the estate’s library. She was multi-lingual and steeped in classical literature by the time a series of her essays and translations led to an invitation to London to edit the prestigious Westminster Review—anonymously, for fear a female editor would put off readers. When nearly 40 she published the story collection Scenes of Clerical Life, under the pseudonym George Eliot, partly because she was living with a married man, radical publisher George Henry Lewes, and feared being shunned by the public. Bu tin 1849 her fist novel Adam Bede, with its startling realism and psychologically astute characterizations, caused a sensation—and prompted an imposter to claim authorship. Evans revealed herself and was indeed ostracized, although less so with each successful new book, from The Mill on the Floss to Silas Marner and Middlemarch. After 25 years together Lewes died and, still grieving, she married their banker, a man 20 years her junior. She died shortly thereafter in 1880.

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Praise for Silas Marner

Spellbinding.

Daily Telegraph

Pullman's writing is spellbinding, his storytelling brilliant.

Scotsman

A stunning, dense and deep novel . . . funny and unquenchably imaginative.

Observer

His Dark Materials wasn't just the best children's book - it was also the most interesting fictional experiment of our times.

Reader's Digest

An eye-widening fantasy, a scorching thriller and a thought-provoking reflection on the human condition, this is a book that can be enjoyed at many levels.

Guardian