Silas Marner is the third novel by English author George Eliot. It was published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, the novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community.
Silas Marner is an impressive narrative, spiced with rustic humour and replete with forceful village characters. Accused of a false charge of theft that Silas Marner did not commit, he leaves his small religious community and takes refuge in the agricultural village of Raveloe.
There he works hard as linen-weaver and accumulates a goodly sum of gold coins. His only consolation in his loneliness is his growing treasure of gold coins he counts each night. Then one day, the money is stolen from his cottage by the squire’s reprobate son Dunstan Cass, who disappears.
Marner mourns his loss bitterly until, one snowy night, an abandoned little girl, Eppie, wanders into his cottage. In his eyes she becomes more precious than his lost gold. He becomes a loving father to the child, watching over her as she grows into a lovely young woman.
After many years the draining of a pond near Silas’s door reveals the skeleton of Dunstan with the gold….
