Books

Neuware - The Clarendon edition of Adam Bede (1859) is the first critical edition of the work that established George Eliot's reputation. Its extensive textual apparatus lists manuscript and first edition variants from the copy-text, which is the corrected eighth edition of 1861--her last revision of the book. The introduction locates the genesis of the novel in Eliot's family history, her travels, and her reading of literature and biography, and describes the composition process, including her debate with the publisher John Blackwood about the suitability of the subject-matter for a family audience.

Published in 1859, 'Adam Bede' is the first novel by George Eliot. It was an immediate success and praised for its realistic and rustic depiction of 19th-century rural life.