Romola is a historical novel by George Eliot set in the fifteenth century, and is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view". The story takes place amidst actual historical events during the Italian Renaissance, and includes in its plot several notable figures from Florentine history.

Romola

Scenes de la vie du clerge

If you are either learning French, or learning English as a second language (ESL) as a French speaker, this book is for you. There are many editions of Silas Marner. This one is worth the price if you would like to enrich your French-English vocabulary, whether for self-improvement or for preparation in advanced of college examinations. Each page is annotated with a mini-thesaurus of uncommon words highlighted in the text. Not only will you experience a great classic, but learn the richness of the English language with French synonyms at the bottom of each page. You will not see a full translation of the English text, but rather a running bilingual thesaurus to maximize the reader's exposure to the subtleties of both languages.

Silas Marner

Le voile soulevé - Nouvelle

Complete and unabridged. One of BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. A masterpiece of candid observation, emotional insight and transcending humour, Middlemarch is a truly monumental novel. Endlessly appealing to modern readers, Middlemarch has been adapted as a BBC Radio 4 drama. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition features an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan. Dorothea Brooke is a beautiful and idealistic young woman set on filling her life with good deeds. She pursues the pompous Edward Casuabon, convinced that he embodies these principles, and becomes trapped in an unhappy marriage. Then there is Tertius Lydgate, an anguished progressive whose determination to bring modern medicine to the provinces is muddied by unrequited love. They, and a multitude of other brilliantly drawn characters, reside in the town Middlemarch - the background to George Eliot's incomparable portrait of Victorian life.

Middlemarch

"C'est en 1858 que paraissent les Scènes de la vie du clergé, acte de naissance de la plus grande romancière anglaise du XIXe siècle. Bien plus que les figures de pasteurs présentées par ces trois récits, compte la peinture attendrie et comique, mais aussi cruelle, d'une société provinciale aux prises avec les bouleversements, dans la vie quotidienne et les mentalités, apportés à l'Angleterre par les suites de la révolution industrielle. Pour George Eliot, en effet, l'observation des êtres, aussi minutieuse soit-elle, ne se conçoit qu'intégrée dans une vue d'ensemble des groupes sociaux auxquels ils appartiennent. D'où le choix qu'elle fait, dès cette première œuvre, de peindre des "héros" qui fassent partie de l'humanité moyenne - vision esthétique où se combinent d'ailleurs sens chrétien et sens démocratique - et en soient pleinement représentatifs. Scènes de la vie du clergé, ou l'entrée en douceur du réalisme dans la fiction anglaise." (Jean Gattégno)

Scènes de la vie du clergé

Middlemarch

Silas Marner 

The Mill on the Floss

"Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. "

George Eliot Collection

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses-and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak-there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?-and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother? To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft.

Middlemarch (1871-1872) est sans doute le plus beau roman de George Eliot, en tout cas son roman le plus complet (le sixième sur sept). Deux intrigues sentimentales principales, l'histoire des deux mariages de Dorothea et le mariage malheureux de Lydgate, jeune médecin ambitieux, avec la vulgaire Rosamond Vincy, se détachent sur un fond foisonnant de personnages et d'événements, d'épisodes intéressants, amusants, émouvants. Un des charmes de George Eliot est dans cette surabondance de détails. Nous avons fait figurer en préface un beau texte de Virginia Woolf sur George Eliot : «L'issue fut triomphale pour elle, quel qu'ait pu être le destin de ses créatures ; et quand nous nous rappelons tout ce qu'elle a osé, tout ce qu'elle a accompli, la façon dont, malgré tous les obstacles qui jouaient contre elle (le sexe, la santé, les conventions), elle a cherché toujours plus de savoir, toujours plus de liberté jusqu'au jour où le corps, accablé par son double fardeau, s'effondra, épuisé, nous devons poser sur sa tombe toutes les brassées de lauriers et de roses que nous possédons.»

Romola

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