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Introduction and Notes by R.T. Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York. Although the shortest of George Eliot's novels, "Silas Marner" is one of her most admired and loved works. It tells the sad story of the unjustly exiled Silas Marner - a handloom linen weaver of Raveloe in the agricultural heartland of England - and how he is restored to life by the unlikely means of the orphan child Eppie. 'Silas Marner' is a tender and moving tale of sin and repentance set in a vanished rural world and holds the reader's attention until the last page as Eppie's bonds of affection for Silas are put to the test. AUTHOR Mary Anne (Mary Ann, Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological insight. She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure that her works were taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names, but Eliot wanted to ensure that she was not seen as merely a writer of romances. An additional factor may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes.