First published in 1861 it tells the tale of the lonely weaver Silas Marner who, after suffering betrayal and rejection, leaves his community to become a recluse obsessed only with accumulating money. One day Silas's money is stolen by Dunstan Cass, a dissolute son of Squire Cass, the town's leading landowner. The loss of his gold drives Silas into a deep gloom, until one day a little golden-haired orphan girl wanders into his home to change his life forever.

Falsely accused of a crime and betrayed by his closest friend, the weaver Silas Marner has been hoarding his earnings for 15 years. Distanced from his religious community, he has devoted himself to his work and taken pleasure only in counting his coins. Then in a single day, his gold is stolen and a lovely child appears on his doorstep. As he changes his life to meet the irresistible needs of the child, Marner accepts that the loss of the gold was a necessary exchange for the child.

"Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe" is a novel by George Eliot. Her third novel, it was first published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a reclusive weaver, in its strong realism it represents one of Eliot's most sophisticated treatments of her attitude to religion.

Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), known by her pen name George Eliot, was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels are known for their realism and psychological insight. Four of them are included in this volume: Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, The Mill on the Floss, and The Lifted Veil.

In this humorous, richly symbolic, meticulously plotted novel, a solitary and simple-hearted weaver has worked his loom in Raveloe and devoted himself to amassing a hoard of golden guineas. However his life is changed forever when tragedy intervenes and he finds himself responsible for the care of a small golden-haired girl.