"The sad fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", "Mr Gilfil's love-story" and "Janet's repentance", are the three stories which make up this, George Eliot's first work of fiction, published anonymously in "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine" in 1857. In these stories George Eliot aimed to present, as truthfully as possible, the lives of ordinary men and women, their joys and suffering, their emotions, their conceptions of life and their human weaknesses, in such a way that they might capture the reader's sympathy and compassion. This edition reproduces the text of the same editor's Clarendon edition, based on the first volume printing collated with later editions and with the manuscript. Thomas Noble is author of "George Eliot's scenes of clerical life" and the chronology is by Gordon S. Haight.
