On the 28^th November 1860, George Eliot wrote in her diary that the idea of Silas Marner had come to her all of a sudden while she was researching for her historical novel, Romola. By the April 10^th the following year it was finished and dispatched from Italy to her publisher John Blackwood in Edinburgh. Just over a month later it was already published and she was making a note of its success back in England. That success has continued to this day, and it remains one of the most popular novels ever written.

Stylistically, Silas Marner is the last of Eliot's rustic novels (after Scenes from Clerical Life (1857), Adam Bede (1858), andMill on the Floss (1860)). These

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Published 01 April 2002

Citation: Uglow, Nathan. "Silas Marner". The Literary Encyclopedia. 1 April 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2085, accessed 9 February 2010.]