Adam Bede

George Eliot’s (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) first full-length novel, „Adam Bede” paints a powerful portrait of rural life, seduction, faith, self-deception and redemption. First published in 1859, this innovative novel carried its readers back sixty years to a time of impending change for England and the wider world. The story follows the rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope – a rural, pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. Adam Bede is a carpenter who falls in love with Hetty Sorrel, a vain, self-seeking country maid-girl who lives with the Poysers, uncle and aunt of Adam. In reality, the plot involves the love story among the four main characters: Adam, Hetty Sorrel, Arthur Donnithorne, a young squire who seduces Hetty, and Dinah Morris, Hetty’s cousin and an itinerant Methodist preacher. After have been seduced by Arthur, Hetty’s life become a turmoil of tragic events…