Adam Bede

[Lectora]

I've been meaning to read this book for years and never got round to it until afew weeks ago. Adam Bede is the first of George Eliot's novels and for a first, it really is very good. I was engrossed from start to finish. The setting is rural Midlands (north Warwickshire), at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. The reader is given a real insight into English country life before the Industriali Revolution removed so many of the rural poor into the grimy urban areas.
The story centres round 2-3 families and residents, whose lives become more and more involved with each other. The rigid class structure of the period is a dominant feature. "God bless the squire and his relations and keep us all in our proper stations". As in George Eliot's Silas Marner and in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the young squire gets a peasant girl pregnant with tragic consequences. In Adam Bede, the girl, Hetty Sorrel is foolish enough to think that her lover, Arthur Donnithorne, the old squire's heir will marry her.
The hero, Adam Bede, an intelligent, hard working carpenter is in love with Hetty but then when she is harshly removed from the community, takes a couple of years to fall in love with the heroine Dinah Morris, who was a woman Methodist preacher until the Wesleyan Coinference of 1808 decided it was unseemly for women to preach in male company, and removed their permission to do so. However, that prohibtion fits in rather well with the ending! Yes, it is delightful book, a few flaws perhaps in the characrerisations and plot "fixing" but a thoroughly enjoyable read.
(for e book readers - this is a free download from Amazon (Kindle) or Project Gutenberg)

[Ailecornum]

Usually I don't line up to read George Elliot, although I do read Victorian fiction in general. However I loved this book. I found it interesting, thought provoking and riveting. I find Hetty a very convincing character, both in her innocence and her frustration with her situation. And I really felt Eliott's compassion for her characters in this book and it's a good introduction to her themes and interests without being too long. I also find the writing and as you mentioned, the detail, makes the period and the feel of it very present and a clearer understanding of what their lives might have been like. A real gem. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[jfp]

I agree that Adam Bede is a delightful novel, which, like all of George Eliot's work, lives in the shadow of her formidable Middlemarch.

Also recommended is Felix Holt, her "political novel", which gives another fascinating portrait of the era - although it is altogether more sombre in tone than Adam Bede.

[nonsuch]

Also recommended is The Mill on the Floss, where Maggie Tulliver, the would-be rebel, makes her appearance. As with Adam Bede a heavy moral male dominates, crushing any female protest and pointing the way to a socially correct path, a la GE dictate. Woe betide the straying female - although in The Mill ... but mustn't spoil the story for those who've not yet read it!

[Lectora]

Many thanks for both recommendations - Felix Holt and The Mill on the Floss. I tried The Mill on the Floss years ago (in my teens) but did not get on with it. Time to have another go. I can get it free on the Kindle, but not Felix Holt for which I have to pay a small amount!