Silas Marner

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is a novel written by George Eliot and originally published in 1861. It is the author's third novel and one of her most critically acclaimed.

Silas Marner lives in the town of Raveloe, where he is a weaver and is really good at his trade. He arrives there after being falsely accused of theft in the Lantern Yard congregation by William Dane, who until then had been his closest friend and who went on to marry the woman Silas was engaged to.

The community in Raveloe is totally different from the one he had left. They are rather closed-minded villagers to outsiders and Silas ends up isolating himself in his work, working long hours and only getting pleasure from the money he is accumulating over the years.

His character gradually becomes more taciturn and he suffers again from brief bouts of catalepsy, which he has had since his youth.

However, this quiet and secluded life comes to an end when Dunstan Cass, the son of the most important man in town, robs Silas' house and takes the money he had managed to save for years with hours of hard work. Silas discovers the theft and turns to his neighbors, who can do nothing for him — until, one New Year's Eve, a small child walks into his cottage and changes his life.

"In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?..."