Silas Marner by George Eliot

"Reading it again this year, it felt like proof that a life going badly wrong can, by good fortune and an answering faith and determination, be put triumphantly right." -David Constantine, The Independent Silas Marner 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 industrialization to community.