'Meticulously researched and cogently argued, George Eliot and the Conflict of Interpretations is not only the most sophisticated reading of and arguably the best introduction to George Eliot's novels to date, but also one of the most distinguished recent contributions to the intellectual history of the Victorian period. Carroll's wide-ranging book will be essential reading not only for all students of Eliot's novels, but for the growing number of cultural historians concerned with the interplay of intellectual contexts and literature in the nineteenth century.' Anglia

• Preface; Introduction: a working hypothesis; 1. Scenes of Clerical Life: familiar types and symbols; 2. Adam Bede: pastoral Theodicies; 3. The Mill on the Floss: growing up in St Off's; 4. Silas Marner: rustic hermeneutics; 5. Romola: duplicity, doubleness, and sacred rebellion; 6. Felix Holt: commentaries on the Apocalypse; 7. Middlemarch: empiricist fables; 8. Daniel Deronda: coercive types; Conclusion; Notes; Index.

'Meticulously researched and cogently argued, George Eliot and the Conflict of Interpretations is not only the most sophisticated reading of and arguably the best introduction to George Eliot's novels to date, but also one of the most distinguished recent contributions to the intellectual history of the Victorian period. Carroll's wide-ranging book will be essential reading not only for all students of Eliot's novels, but for the growing number of cultural historians concerned with the interplay of intellectual contexts and literature in the nineteenth century.' Anglia

• Preface; Introduction: a working hypothesis; 1. Scenes of Clerical Life: familiar types and symbols; 2. Adam Bede: pastoral Theodicies; 3. The Mill on the Floss: growing up in St Off's; 4. Silas Marner: rustic hermeneutics; 5. Romola: duplicity, doubleness, and sacred rebellion; 6. Felix Holt: commentaries on the Apocalypse; 7. Middlemarch: empiricist fables; 8. Daniel Deronda: coercive types; Conclusion; Notes; Index.