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Adam Bede (Penguin Popular Classics) (Hardcover)

by George Eliot (Author)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (28 Jul 1994)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0140621016
ISBN-13: 978-0140621013
Product Dimensions: 18 x 11 x 3.3 cm

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 533,254 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#61 in Books > Fiction > The Classics > Eliot, George

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Product Description

In Adam Bede (1859) George Eliot took the well-worn tale of a lovely dairy-maid seduced by a careless squire, and out if it created a wonderfully innovative and sympathetic portrait of the lives of ordinary Midlands working people--their labors and loves, their beliefs, their talk. This edition reprints the original broadsheet reports of the murder case that was a starting point for the book, and detailed notes illuminate Eliot's many literary and Biblical allusions.

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gorgeous snapshot of rural life, 14 Dec 2000

By A Customer

This is the first of George Eliot's novels, following on from her beautifully observed Scenes of Clerical Life. Adam Bede was perhaps not as commercially suuceessful as the better known Middlemarch, or The Mill on the Floss, but it deserves attention for its well-crafted tragi-comical plot and the host of supporting characters marching through the pages. Throughout this book nothing jars; the affectionate descriptions of country pastoral life blend in seamlessly with Adam's own struggles with his ailing mother, gentle brother and his aching love for childish, vain and kitten-like Hetty Sorrel. Eloiot's strength is in the rounded portrayal of her characters: Hetty, who could have so easily become a villainness in other hands, is treated with a mixture of sympathy, affection and sorrow: Eliot manages to show that character traits are not clear-cut and the boundary between good intentions and bad, between what is morally right or wrong can so often be blurred and confusing. Hetty's foil, her gentle methodist cousin Dinah, also emphasises this confusion: her faith, beliefs, her very goodness are shown to be traits she uses to hide behind: the one cousin is all pretty selfish emotion, the other's cool reason and serenity conceal her emotional state. In the middle of this pretty country scene, and these confusing moral boundaries Adam Bede stands strong and proud. Eliot has created a hero of great simplicity and truth. His very name conveys a sense of new birth and primitive natural feeling, he stands as the first man must have stood in Eden, not hiding his feelings and emotions but treating himself honestly and fearlessly. Eliot's narrative style is gently melodic: even times of crisis in the novel are treated with sorrow, rather than the stormy voice which characterizes the telling of the later story of Maggie Tulliver. In Adam Bede, Eliot revels in the gorgeous natural beauty of the countryside and provides snapshots of village life: the pastor, the surrounding families, and especially the exhilaration of the village fete, provided by the rich manor house family. Eliot most of all emphasises the ruthless hand of fate pulling the strings, the sorrow in this novel comes from the recognition of disaster rushing in upon this tight-knit community. The novel's warm conclusion must always be slightly tempered by a slight insecurity: that we none of us are infallible, or immune from the fates that guide us. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone beginning to read George Eliot, it is a beautiful and gentle introduction.

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