Adam Bede
by George Eliot 1819–1880
The book, and the century it came out of.
A village carpenter loves a dairymaid who has been noticed by the young squire, and a Methodist woman preacher sees what is coming before anyone else. George Eliot — Mary Ann Evans, who took a man’s name to be read seriously and lived openly with a married man — put her father’s Warwickshire into her first novel and made the ordinary rural poor the subject of serious fiction, which nobody had done. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Stubbs and Wheatley among them.
With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past.
Adam Bede, by George Eliot, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Literary Classics
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 632 pages
- Reading time
- about 13 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501679382
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
1859 — the year of the Origin of Species
George Eliot published her first novel in the same season as Darwin, and under a man’s name: she was living openly with a man married to someone else, and her real name would have sunk the book. When the secret came out, sales rose.
The story is set sixty years earlier, in the Methodist revival, and takes a woman preacher seriously at a moment when the Church would not. Eliot had translated German biblical criticism into English before she wrote fiction; she knew precisely what she was doing with faith.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Adam Bede, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Literary Classics shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501679382, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Adam Bede?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. George Eliot's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 632 pages, which is roughly about 13 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
