Audiobook · read by volunteers
Silas Marner
George Eliot (1819–1880)
Read by rachelellen · 22 chapters · 6 h 46
About the book
Silas Marner is a weaver who has been wronged. Falsely accused of a theft he did not commit and cast out by the community he loved, he settles in the quiet village of Raveloe and shuts himself away with his loom and his gold. The villagers avoid him, whispering about his strange habits, and he asks nothing of them. For years the only warmth he knows is the glitter of the coins he counts at night. Then something happens that changes the course of his life, and with it the lives of those around him. George Eliot’s short, humane novel is a story about loss, trust and the unexpected ways in which love can return. It is the shortest of her novels and among the most loved. Nearly seven hours, read by one voice, make it an ideal slow listen.
Introduction
George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, lived from 1819 to 1880 and became one of the leading novelists of Victorian England. Silas Marner was published in 1861 and is one of her shortest and most widely read books. It tells the story of an awkward weaver who is betrayed by a beloved friend and accused of a crime he did not commit. He is expelled from the religious community that has been the only one he has ever known, and exiles himself in the remote village of Raveloe, where he lives friendless and without family, set apart from the villagers by their superstition and fear of him.
From this starting point Eliot builds a story that explores the way a community judges its outsiders and the way a person can be remade by an unexpected bond. She writes with great sympathy for the villagers as well as for Silas, and she fills the book with careful observation of rural life, from the gatherings at the local inn to the households of the gentry.
The novel is sometimes described as a fable or a moral tale, but its characters are drawn with the same realism as in her longer works. The language is rich but the plot is concentrated, which makes it a good introduction to Eliot.
The recording is divided into 22 chapters and lasts about six hours and forty-five minutes. A single LibriVox volunteer reads the whole book, giving it a continuous, intimate tone. It suits long evenings, and it rewards a patient listener with a story that is both modest and deeply moving.
Public domain
George Eliot died in 1880: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text