* George Eliot - Novels, Essays, Poetry and Letters (35 books)

GEORGE ELIOT, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880), was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era.  Critical of female writers of her time for their trivial plots, she wanted to ensure her work was taken seriously and adopted the nom-de-plume George Eliot.  Most of her novels are set in provincial England and are known for their realism, deep psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.

Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen.  From ADAM BEDE (1859) to THE MILL ON THE FLOSS (1860) and SILAS MARNER (1861), Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution.  FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL (1866) drew on the turbulent politics of the 1830s, grappling with the question of whether democracy can be relied upon to deliver a deeply divided society from the ills that beset it.

Political crisis is also at the heart of MIDDLEMARCH (1871–72), regarded as Eliot’s masterpiece.  The epic novel presents the stories of a number of inhabitants of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832, and is notable for its intellectual breadth and many sophisticated character portraits.  Among the issues addressed in the novel are the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education.  Every class of society is depicted from the landed gentry and clergy to the manufacturers and professional men, the shopkeepers, publicans, farmers, and labourers.  Several strands of plot are interwoven to reinforce each other by contrast and parallel.  Yet the story depends not on close-knit intrigue but on showing the incalculably diffusive effect of the unhistoric acts of those who "lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs."

V. S. Pritchett wrote in 1946 that "No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative... I doubt if any Victorian novelist has as much to teach the modern novelists as George Eliot... No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully."

"The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter or poet or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies," she wrote.  Eliot's artistic virtues – wisdom, kindness, intellectual honesty, moral seriousness – may seem old-fashioned, even off-putting, but her deep, encompassing humanity and her penetrating intelligence are needed more than ever in our fractious, fragmented times.


The following books are in ePub format unless otherwise noted:

== COMPLETE WORKS ==

* Complete Works (Delphi Classics, 2012)
* Complete Works, v.1.6 (Pynch, 2016)

== NOVELS ==

* Adam Bede [ed. Martin] (Oxford, 2008)
* Adam Bede [ed. Reynolds] (Penguin, 2008)
* Daniel Deronda [ed. White] (Modern Library, 2002)
* Daniel Deronda [ed. Handley] (Oxford, 2004)
* Daniel Deronda [ed. Cave] (Penguin, 2003)
* Felix Holt [ed. Mugglestone] (Penguin, 1995)
* Middlemarch [intro. Francine Prose] (HarperCollins, 2015)
* Middlemarch [ed. Byatt] (Modern Library, 1994)
* Middlemarch [ed. Carroll, intro. Bonaparte] (Oxford, 1998)
* Middlemarch [ed. Carroll, intro. Russell] (Oxford, 2019)
* Middlemarch [ed. Ashton] (Penguin, 1994)
* Middlemarch [ed. Hornback, 2e] (Norton Critical Edition, 1999) – PDF
* Mill on the Floss [ed. Livesey] (Modern Library, 2001)
* Mill on the Floss [ed. Haight, intro. Birch] (Oxford, 1998)
* Mill on the Floss [ed. Haight, intro. Atkinson] (Oxford, 2015)
* Mill on the Floss [ed. Byatt] (Penguin, 2003)
* Mill on the Floss [ed. Lovesey] (Broadview, 2007) – PDF
* Romola [ed. Kiely] (Modern Library, 2003)
* Romola [ed. Barrett] (Penguin, 2005)
* Silas Marner [ed. Atkinson] (Oxford, 2017)
* Silas Marner [ed. Carroll] (Penguin, 1996)

== SHORT FICTION & NOVELLAS ==

* The Lifted Veil (Melville House, 2006)
* The Lifted Veil (Penguin, 2016)
* The Lifted Veil / Brother Jacob [ed. Small] (Oxford, 1999) – ePub + PDF
* Scenes of Clerical Life [ed. Noble] (Oxford, 2015)
* Scenes of Clerical Life [ed. Gribble] (Penguin, 1998)

== POETRY, ESSAYS, & LETTERS ==

* A George Eliot Miscellany [ed. Pinion] (Macmillan, 1982) – PDF
* Complete Shorter Poetry [ed. van den Broek] (Routledge, 2016)
* Selected Essays, Poems & Other Writings [ed. Byatt & Warren] (Penguin, 1990)
* Selections from George Eliot's Letters [ed. Haight] (Yale, 1985) – PDF
* Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (Penguin, 2010)
* The Wisdom of George Eliot [ed. Engle] (Citadel, 2002)

== TRANSLATIONS ==

* The Essence of Christianity [Ludwig Feuerbach] (Dover, 2008)


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