Silas Marner by George Eliot

 story of old-fashioned village life wrote George Eliot of Silas Marner, whose Wordsworthian theme is the remedial influence of pure, natural human relations. Long favourite among her novels and often regarded as a mere moral faery-tale, it contains, along with its genial humour and its mellow portraiture, many complex ironies and a great deal of pointed social criti A story of old-fashioned village life wrote George Eliot of Silas Marner, whose Wordsworthian theme is the remedial influence of pure, natural human relations. Long favourite among her novels and often regarded as a mere moral faery-tale, it contains, along with its genial humour and its mellow portraiture, many complex ironies and a great deal of pointed social criticism. Marners spiritual death and his resurrection through the child Eppie and the neighbourliness of the village community have, as Mrs Leavis points out, a multiple typicality; through his case are examined the dire effects of the Industrial Revolution and the rich human possibilities of a way of life that, even in George Eliots lifetime, was passing away.