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'the only true knowledge of our fellow-man is that which enables us to feel with him'
George Eliot's first published work consisted of three short novellas: 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton', 'Mr Gilfil's Love-Story', and 'Janet's Repentance'. Their depiction of the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town initiated a new era of nineteenth-century literary realism. The tales concern rural members of the clergy and the gossip and factions that a small town generates around them. Amos Barton only realizes how much he depends upon his wife's
selfless love when she dies prematurely; Mr Gilfil's devotion to a girl who loves another is only fleetingly rewarded; and Janet Dempster suffers years of domestic abuse before the influence of an Evangelical minister turns her life around.
These stories are remarkable for the tenderness with which Eliot portrays a bygone time of religious belief in a newly secular age, giving literary fiction an alternative language to religion and philosophy for the observation and understanding of human experience.
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About the author
Edited by Thomas A. Noble and Josie Billington. Josie Billington is Deputy Director, Centre for Research into Reading, Literature, and Society at the University of Liverpool.
Summary
Scenes of Clerical Life consists of three short novellas in which the lives of ordinary men and women in a provincial Midlands town are portrayed with tender sympathy and understanding. Eliot brought a new level of literary realism to her tales of Amos Barton, Mr Gilfil, and Janet Dempster in her first published work of fiction.
Additional text
It's a little late for me to review a book that has been a prized classic of English literature for over a hundred years, so I'll confine my comments to the package - there are various editions of this book available, but given the choice I would opt for an Oxford World's Classic edition any day - the clarity of the typeface and the quality of the paper are superb, and the cover artwork is stunning. Brilliant new editions of two of George Eliot's timeless classics.
Report
These gripping stories depict the lives - gossip, rivalry, spats, loves and religious controversies - of ordinary 1800s people living in a provincial, God-fearing Midlands town. The unsolved everyday problems and confusions swirl and fascinate - much as they swirl and fascinate today. Val Hennessy, Daily Mail
