Adam Bede

George Eliot

Maison d'édition: CLXBX

Synopsis

Set in the pastoral countryside of late 18th-century England, Adam Bede is a powerful and deeply human novel that explores love, morality, betrayal, and redemption. As George Eliot's first published novel, it established her as one of the greatest writers of Victorian literature, celebrated for her psychological depth and compassionate realism.

At the heart of the story is Adam Bede, a hardworking and principled carpenter admired for his integrity and strength of character. Adam believes firmly in honesty, duty, and moral responsibility, values that guide every aspect of his life. Yet beneath his steady exterior lies a passionate heart, particularly when it comes to matters of love.

Adam finds himself deeply in love with the beautiful and charming Hetty Sorrel, a young dairymaid whose vanity and desire for a more glamorous life lead her into a secret and dangerous relationship with the dashing young squire, Arthur Donnithorne. While Arthur's charm masks his moral weakness, Hetty's youthful naivety blinds her to the serious consequences of her choices. As their ill-fated romance unfolds, the novel builds toward a heartbreaking crisis that tests every character's conscience and reshapes their destinies.

In contrast to Hetty's fragile vanity stands Dinah Morris, a gentle and devout Methodist preacher whose quiet strength and spiritual compassion form the moral center of the story. Through Dinah, Eliot explores themes of faith, forgiveness, and the possibility of redemption even in the face of grave wrongdoing.

Adam Bede is much more than a tale of romantic entanglement. George Eliot paints a vivid portrait of rural community life, filled with richly drawn characters whose struggles reflect universal human dilemmas. The novel examines the tension between desire and duty, appearance and reality, and justice and mercy. Eliot's profound insight into human nature reveals how small choices can carry immense consequences, and how compassion can coexist with accountability.

With its emotional intensity, moral complexity, and beautifully detailed setting, Adam Bede remains a timeless exploration of the human heart. It is a moving story of love tested by weakness, of suffering transformed by understanding, and of the enduring power of empathy in a flawed world.

Disponible depuis: 22/02/2026.

Longueur d'impression: 724 pages.

D'autres livres qui pourraient vous intéresser

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Tracy Chevalier

An international bestseller with over two million copies sold, this is a story of an artist's desire for beauty and the ultimate corruption of innocence. 
 
17th-century Holland. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer in the town of Delft, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry, and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy  
spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond. 
 
Tracy Chevalier's extraordinary historical novel on the corruption of innocence and the price of genius is a contemporary classic.

Voir livre

Preacher's Rage

William W. Johnstone, J. A....

For the greatest trapper in the country, there's no place like the Rocky Mountains. Preacher and his son Hawk are riding the High Lonesome when the clear mountain air is split by a girl's savage screams. A gang of ruthless trappers has kidnapped a Crow woman, but before they escape with her, Preacher and Hawk burst out of the tree line, guns spitting fire. They drive the trappers off, only to find that she's not Crow, but white. Caroline has been raised by the Crow since childhood, the only people she's ever known. To get her home, Preacher and Hawk will have to blast their way off this mountain, gunning down kill-crazy trappers and merciless Blackfeet warriors. Because it's never really quiet on the western front

Voir livre

Never Just a Wife - Life with a...

T. J. McKenzie

Never Just a Wife
Life with a Drover on the Australian Long Paddock
Inspired by true events
At seventeen, Bev walked away from a planned wedding in a small Victorian town and stepped onto the stock routes with a drover named Laurie.
By sunrise she was gone — leaving behind family expectations and the life everyone assumed she would live.
Ahead of her lay the long paddock.
Before road trains and fenced paddocks changed the Australian bush forever, sheep and cattle moved the old way — slowly and patiently across hundreds of miles of open country.
Drovers rode with the mobs, guiding them from station to station along dusty stock routes.
But behind every drover was something most people never saw.
A family.
Bev didn’t stay behind waiting for the drover to return. She travelled the road with him.
Together they built a life on the move — first with a wagon, later with a converted bus carrying children, dogs, supplies and sometimes even horses along the stock routes of Victoria and New South Wales.
Laundry flapped from makeshift clotheslines in open paddocks. Camps shifted every few miles. Babies were born along the way. Children grew up among sheep, dogs and campfires under enormous Australian skies.
Along the way there were unforgettable characters and bush stories — a fearless cattle dog named Bluey, Mrs McGreggor and the three sheep she used to lead mobs across the Hay bridge, a homemade horse float rattling behind the bus, and a family confrontation in Merrigum that no one present would ever forget.
It was a life of dust, humour, hardship and resilience — a way of living that has almost disappeared from modern Australia.
Never Just a Wife is a remarkable story of droving life, family and the woman who proved she was far more than the drover’s wife.

Voir livre

The Lake

George Moore

"The Lake" by George Moore explores the intricate dynamics of a love triangle among two friends and a mysterious woman. Set against the picturesque backdrop of an Irish lake, the novel weaves a tale of desire, betrayal, and the consequences of unfulfilled passions. Moore's narrative unfolds with poetic prose, delving into the complexities of human relationships and the impact of societal expectations on personal choices. As emotions ebb and flow like the lake's gentle ripples, the story captivates with its exploration of the timeless themes of love and the indelible marks it leaves on the human heart.

Voir livre

The Warrior Poet

Sharon Lynn Fisher

They searched for each other in dreams. Then they traveled through time to save Ireland.
Portland book artist Neve Kelly is having weird visions—vivid daydreams of lovers on a battlefield that yank her out of reality. A couple weeks before Halloween, a confused, strangely dressed man appears in her living room. He drops a slip of paper that describes a dream much like her own before disappearing without a trace.
Will Yeats has had enough of heroics. With the peace between Ireland and its enemies restored, he plans to spend the next decade quietly writing his Irish fairy history. But suddenly he’s time traveling again. He briefly visits the home of an intriguing stranger, who appears to be American. The next time he’s drawn there, he finds her being sucked through a ghastly hole in her ceiling.
Will saves Neve by carrying her back to 1888 Ireland, where he learns that not only is she from more than a century in the future but from a parallel world where fairies and Tuatha De Danaan heroes are no more than myth. Their dreams of ancient lovers have brought them together … but why? Dark portents surround them—portents bearing the mark of the Morrigan’s meddling—and they soon discover it’s all part of a sinister scheme to seize the throne of Ireland. And the love story from their dreams has begun to manifest in the present moment.
Will’s friends—Irish Queen Isolde and her allies—are depending on Will and Neve to connect with the past in order to save Ireland. But can anything save them from the violent end that their dreams have foreshadowed?

Voir livre

Meet Me at the Clock - A Hotel...

Tanya E Williams

Step into the opulent world of The Hotel Hamilton, where the chandelier sparkles while a maid’s aspirations fade into the woodwork. 
Vancouver, Canada, 1927. A hotel maid’s duty is to never be seen. That’s no problem for Clara, who finds safety in her station. But for her sister, Louisa, it’s cold outside the limelight. 
Clara is content being an obliging working girl, but she doesn’t feel worthy of the leadership responsibilities the hotel matron seems intent to thrust upon her. Torn between the unspoken limitations of her social standing and the demands of a fast-changing world, Clara is paralyzed by her fear of stepping out of line. 
Louisa, an aspiring actress, is grateful for her employment at the prestigious hotel, but the feeling that she is meant for more haunts her as she sleepwalks through her days. Though Louisa’s ambitious nature yearns for a life in the theatre, she hasn’t auditioned in months. When she finally steps back into the spotlight, she brings her demons along with her, unable to forget what happened the last time she was on stage. 
Already challenged with holding their family together, the sisters face the limits of their bond when prejudice and cruelty rear their dark heads. With Clara trapped in her comfortable cocoon and Louisa terrified of repeating the past, the sisters must learn from each other in order to stand against injustice and chart their own path through life.

Voir livre