This text is an updated edition of George Eliot's classic tale. The novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community.
Biographical noteMary Ann (Marian) Evans was born in 1819 in Warwickshire. Under the name of George Eliot, she wrote Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, as well as numerous essays, articles and reviews. She died in 1880, only a few months after marrying J. W. Cross, an old friend and admirer, who became her first biographer.Margaret Reynolds works on literature from the C18th to the present day, especially poetry, and especially in the Victorian period. Her The Sappho History (2003) traced the transmission of the works and images of the ancient Greek poet as they appear in the works of Mary Robinson, S.T. Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson, Baudelaire, Swinburne, H.D. and Virginia Woolf. Margaret Reynolds is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's 'Adventures in Poetry', now in its 11th series. She has a weekly column on classic books in the Saturday Times . Main descriptionCarpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival, in the local squire's son Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam Bede, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris. A tale of seduction, betrayal, love and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape itself as vital a presence in the novel as that of her characters themselves.
Biographical noteMary Ann Evans (1819-80) began her literary career as a translator, and later editor, of the Westminster Review. In 1857, she published Scenes of Clerical Life, the first of eight novels she would publish under the name of 'George Eliot', includingAdam Bede, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.A S Byatt is an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her published work includes The Shadow of the Sun and Possession, the winner of the 1990 Booker Prize. Main descriptionDrawing on George Eliot's own childhood experiences to craft an unforgettable story of first love, sibling rivalry and regret, The Mill on the Floss is edited with an introduction and notes by A.S. Byatt, author of Possession, in Penguin Classics.Brought up at Dorlcote Mill, Maggie Tulliver worships her brother Tom and is desperate to win the approval of her parents, but her passionate, wayward nature and her fierce intelligence bring her into constant conflict with her family. As she reaches adulthood, the clash between their expectations and her desires is painfully played out as she finds herself torn between her relationships with three very different men: her proud and stubborn brother; hunchbacked Tom Wakem, the son of her family's worst enemy; and the charismatic but dangerous Stephen Guest. With its poignant portrayal of sibling relationships, The Mill on the Floss is considered George Eliot's most autobiographical novel; it is also one of her most powerful and moving.In this edition, writer and critic A.S. Byatt, author of Possession, provides full explanatory notes and an introduction relating The Mill on the Floss to George Eliot's own life and times.Mary Ann Evans (1819-80) began her literary career as a translator, and later editor, of the Westminster Review. In 1857, she published Scenes of Clerical Life, the first of eight novels she would publish under the name of 'George Eliot', including The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda.If you enjoyed The Mill on the Floss, you might like Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, also available in Penguin Classics.
