Adam Bede
by George Eliot
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1859
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- English
- Length
- Long · 600 pp300 to 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendAdam BedePenguin Classics, 2008Margaret Reynolds's edition, with notes on the Methodist and rural background.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
George Eliot's first full-length novel, set in a Midlands village in 1799. Adam Bede, a carpenter of stern integrity, loves the vain dairymaid Hetty Sorrel, who is seduced by the young squire Arthur Donnithorne. Pregnant and abandoned, Hetty flees, abandons her newborn child and is tried for its death. The Methodist preacher Dinah Morris, who comforts Hetty in prison, becomes the novel's moral centre. Chapter 17 sets out Eliot's defence of realism in fiction.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Adam Bede are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
