"Exiled by superstition and betrayal from Lantern Yard, and cut off from faith and human love, for fifteen years the solitary simple-hearted weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom in Ravenloe and devoted himself to the amassing of a hoard of golden guineas. Silas's chance of redemption, when it appears one New Year's Eve, is intimately connected with the fate of Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire. Clandestinely married, then blackmailed by his dissolute brother Dunstan, Godfrey like Silas has been trapped by his past, from which he is seeking to escape."

edited with an introduction and notes by David Carroll