Silas Marner

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by the English writer George Eliot, published in 1861. The story is set in the early years of the nineteenth century.

Silas Marner is a weaver and a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard. While he is watching over a very ill deacon, the congregation's money is stolen, and Silas is falsely accused of taking it.

Two pieces of evidence are used against him: a pocket knife, and the discovery in his own house of the bag the money had been kept in. He had lent the knife to his best friend, William Dane, shortly before the theft, which strongly suggests that Dane framed him. Lots are drawn in the belief, which Silas shares, that God will direct the process and establish the truth, and the lots declare him guilty. The woman he was to marry breaks their engagement and marries William instead.

With his life shattered, his trust in God gone and his heart broken, Silas leaves Lantern Yard and the city and travels south to the Midlands, where he settles near the village of Raveloe and nobody knows him. The novel is notable for the strength of its realism, and it deals with religion, industrialisation and community.