Silas Marner, The Weaver of Ravelcoe

Paradigm present George Eliot’s ‘Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe’. Presented as a fantastic edition with a fully interactive table of contents.

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, it is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community. The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. In Silas Marner, Eliot combines symbolism with a historically precise setting to create a tale of love and hope. While religion and religious devotion play a strong part in this text, Eliot concerns herself with matters of ethics and interdependence of faith and community.

The tale is set in "the South Midlands," and the fictional Raveloe was based on the Warwickshire village of Bulkington. There are also correlations between locations in the book and the village of Inkberrow, Worcestershire. The first film adaptation was in 1916, and is today considered to be a lost film. The critically acclaimed 1954 Indian film Bangaru Papa, in Telugu, starring S. V. Ranga Rao and Krishna Kumari, is also based on award-winning short story writer Palagummi Padmaraju's loose adaptation of Silas Marner. A new stage version of "Silas Marner" will be premiered at the Grand Theatre Arts Wing, Swansea in September 2012. Written by Francis Hardy, it will be produced by Fluellen Theatre Company.