- Paperback: 328 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks (1 Dec 1988)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192817868
- ISBN-13: 978-0192817860
- Product Dimensions: 18.3 x 11.7 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,010,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
"The sad fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", "Mr Gilfil's love-story" and "Janet's repentance", are the three stories which make up this, George Eliot's first work of fiction, published anonymously in "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine" in 1857. In these stories George Eliot aimed to present, as truthfully as possible, the lives of ordinary men and women, their joys and suffering, their emotions, their conceptions of life and their human weaknesses, in such a way that they might capture the reader's sympathy and compassion. This edition reproduces the text of the same editor's Clarendon edition, based on the first volume printing collated with later editions and with the manuscript. Thomas Noble is author of "George Eliot's scenes of clerical life" and the chronology is by Gordon S. Haight.
About the Author
Thomas A. Noble is editor of the Clarendon edition of Scenes of Clerical Life
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's easy to see why this collection of three stories, George Eliot's first work of fiction, was such a critical and popular success when first published. Its depictions of the homely everyday life of three ordinary, and in many ways unremarkable, churchmen are sketched not only with a good deal of gently ironic humour, but more importantly with a great deal of sympathy for, and interest in, them as human beings. In all three, it is suffering - their own and that of those to and among whom they minister - that, more than anything else, draws out our sympathy for them with `the love that sees in all forms of human thought and work, the life and death struggles of separate human beings' (229). No convoluted plots, no Dickensian focus on external foibles, just a gentle, understanding, very human focus on all the vicissitudes of bereavement, romance, illness and the burden of others' suffering - the `heart-pulses that are beating under the mere clothes of circumstance and opinion' (229), as Eliot describes it.
This Oxford World's Classics edition comes with a brief but insightful introduction from Eliot scholar Thomas Noble, in which he draws attention to the importance, in the work, of sympathy and fellow-feeling with all manner of people as a guide to conduct - at a time when the possibility of supernatural faith as a guide to how one should live life had, for Eliot herself, dried up. Scenes of Clerical Life is, he argues, a means by which Eliot managed to achieve a mature evaluation of what her own, now dead, evangelical faith had bequeathed her - as well as a proof of the continuing hold that the rural north Warwickshire of her childhood still had on her. It is, he suggests, part of the `immovable roots' of the novelist's experience.
This edition also comes with a chronology of the author's life, and explanatory notes to the text.
This Oxford World's Classics edition comes with a brief but insightful introduction from Eliot scholar Thomas Noble, in which he draws attention to the importance, in the work, of sympathy and fellow-feeling with all manner of people as a guide to conduct - at a time when the possibility of supernatural faith as a guide to how one should live life had, for Eliot herself, dried up. Scenes of Clerical Life is, he argues, a means by which Eliot managed to achieve a mature evaluation of what her own, now dead, evangelical faith had bequeathed her - as well as a proof of the continuing hold that the rural north Warwickshire of her childhood still had on her. It is, he suggests, part of the `immovable roots' of the novelist's experience.
This edition also comes with a chronology of the author's life, and explanatory notes to the text.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Scenes of Clerical Life wasn't as boring as I thought it was, in fact it was one of the best books I had read in a very long time. Scenes of Clerical life is actually a collection of three stories - The Sad Fortunes of Amos Barton, Mr Gilfil's Love story and my favourite Janet's Repentance. In fact this is the some of the very first work of George Eliot and you can see her genius at work as she refines her art. Give this a try if you've never read any George Eliot before and hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I have.
Also, a word of warning, George Eliot had a rather large vocabulary, so make sure you have a dictionary if like me you are a bit limited with your vocabulary, but please don't let this put you of reading this book as I have found it has increased my word power exponentially.
Also, a word of warning, George Eliot had a rather large vocabulary, so make sure you have a dictionary if like me you are a bit limited with your vocabulary, but please don't let this put you of reading this book as I have found it has increased my word power exponentially.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Tales of Three Clergymen
13 April 2000
Format:Paperback
George Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life consists of three tales involving three separate clergymen in England in the early 1800s. "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton" is about the financially strapped curate of Shepperton who lacks tact, charm, and learning. Although he is initially unpopular with his parishioners, he earns their affection through his personal misfortune. The second tale, "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story," is about a parson at Shepperton (prior to the time of Amos Barton) who falls in love with Caterina, the daughter of an Italian singer, who, in turn, falls for someone else. When that someone else chooses another woman to be his wife, Mr. Gilfil deals courageously with the devastated Caterina, who is now at "the point of lunacy" because of the rejection. The third tale, "Janet's Repentance," has Reverend Edgar Tryan trying to stir up interest about the Evangelical Church in the religion-indifferent industrial town of Milby. The townfolk vigorously oppose Tryan's efforts in some very dramatic scenes. Janet, a female alcoholic who is frequently beaten by her husband, is at first resistant to Reverend Tryan, but later sees him as a fellow sufferer. She then seeks his guidance for personal problems, with positive results. All three tales are unabashedly sentimental and melodramatic. As this was Eliot's first attempt at fiction, one can see she had a ways to go before she developed the literary perfection that resonates in her later novels like Middlemarch. The tale about Amos Barton is my favorite because Eliot succeeded in making a drab character the hero of a story. The "sad fortunes of" should have been kept out of the title, though, because it suggests only the depressing side of the tale instead of the triumph of character it really is. The way Caterina in the Gilfil tale continues to find her singing the only way to "lift the pain from her heart" points out how a person may deal with grief by relying on an innate talent. The way Janet in the repentance tale goes from a kicked-about drunk to self-actualization is inspiring. Eliot's minor characters, such as the old women, the doctors, and the servants are well drawn, using the speech patterns and vernacular consistent with their respective class or degree of education. Overall, I recommend Scenes of Clerical Life as a fine introduction to George Eliot. However, I feel it is important to read Adam Bede immediately afterwards so one can see how quickly Eliot's ability to write fiction evolved into an art.
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