• This edition, which uses the 1878 Cabinet edition, is based on the last edition for which Eliot provided corrections.
• A fresh introduction that places the novel in its biographical, intellectual, and critical context, while also paying close attention to the nuances and patterns of the work. It considers, in particular, the themes of memory and parenthood, the combination of realism and fable, the novel's preoccupation with mystery and interpretation, its focus on habits, and Eliot's extraordinarily complex use of the imagery of threads and weaving.
• The 'note on the text' offers a clearer and more accurate account of the novel's publication history than can be found in other editions.
• There are extensive and clearly presented textual variants which are not found in other editions. These have drawn on archival research in the British Library and the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.
• Up-to-date Bibliography and detailed explanatory notes.

New to this Edition:

• Introduction by Juliette Atkinson, informed by the latest critical and scholarly thinking on the novel.
• New and expanded Notes.

          
Gold! - his own gold - brought back to him as mysteriously as it had been taken away!
    
Falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls across his threshold. 
   
Combining the qualities of a fable with a rich evocation of rural life in the early years of the nineteenth century, Silas Marner (1861) is a masterpiece of construction and a powerful meditation on the value of communal bonds in a mysterious world.