Adam+Bede

In //Adam Bede,// George Eliot (pseudonym) shakes up life in the rural English community of Hayslope with a careless squire's seduction of dairymaid Hetty Sorrell, the love interest of plain-spoken carpenter Adam Bede. The betrayal brings on tragic consequences among the Midlands country folk, along with Adam Bede's own maturity. Told from an omniscient point of view, Mary Ann Evans' first novel emphasizes her personal philosophies of moral realism and self-control.