Silas Marner

Silas Marner

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe

In the manuscript, the title read: ‘Silas Marner:/The Weaver of Raveloe/A Story/ by/George Eliot’. In a letter to John Blackwood, her publisher, on 28 February 1861, she asked for the words ‘A Story’ to be removed. It was taken out of all printed editions.

Silas Marner took five months to write. It was written between September of 1860 and March 1861. Eliot was working on Romola when she received a summons to write Silas Marner. She put Romola, which was written in installments, aside to write Silas Marner. It was written for publication.

She was inspired to write Silas Marner after reading Wordsworth's poem “Michael.” She quotes three lines from the poem at the beginning of her novel: 'A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts.'

She told her publisher, John Blackwood, in January 1861 about her idea of writing the novel. She wrote that it was “a story of old-fashioned village life, which has unfolded itself from the merest millet seed of thought” (Modern Library).

On 24 February 1861, she said, “it came to me first of all, quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale, suggested by me recollection of having once, in early childhood, seen a linen-weaver with a bag on his back; but, as my mind dwelt on the subject, I became inclined to a more realistic treatment” (Modern Library).

George Eliot’s real name was Marion Evans. She changed it because she did not want people to read her novel just because they were interested in her scandalous life. She was living with G.H.Lewes at the time and had been doing so since 1854. He and Marion Evans were unable to marry. His wife, Agnes, cheated on him with his friend Thorton Hunt, by whom she bore four children along with the three she had with Lewes. Eliot wrote to her brother Isaac in May 1857, telling him about her relationship with Lewes. He did not approve and refused to speak to her ever again and told sister Chrissy to do the same. This was a hard time for Marion.

In March 1859, her sister died. Married women shunned her because of her affair. In September, she and Lewes moved together into London to provide convenient home for Lewe’s son Charles who returned home from Switzerland. In December 1860, when she was halfway done with writing Silas Marner, Eliot suffered from ill health and depression.