Romola

Eliot, George, 1819-1880Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.5

Word count: 1.3M words
Chapters: 128

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Romola by George EliotAuthor: Eliot, George, 1819-1880,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 24, 2007

Editor's review

Romola is the most substantial of George Eliot's historical novels. Set in Renaissance Florence, it revolves around the heroine's choices among family, faith, and public life. Eliot renders psychology and the city with fine detail and a high density of thought, so the book demands patience—and for that very reason suits readers willing to read slowly. The Gutenberg edition makes it easy to search names and places and can be read alongside historical background material. For readers studying Victorian fiction or the reception history of the Renaissance, the work offers ample room for discussion; general readers who want to experience Eliot's skill at portraying moral dilemmas can also begin with the characters' relationships and work gradually inward.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Victorian fiction and historical subjects
Literary enthusiasts willing to read a long novel slowly and attentive to psychological portrayal
Students studying the reception history of the Renaissance or Eliot's works
Readers hoping to use fiction to understand the relationship between morality and public life

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking fast-paced plots and light reading
Those completely unfamiliar with Florentine history who are unwilling to consult reference materials
Beginners with limited English reading ability who need extensive annotation

Reading tips

Read a page or two of background introduction first, to grasp Florence's political and religious landscape before entering the text.
Proceed chapter by chapter; after each chapter, summarize the core conflict in one sentence to keep the threads from scattering.
Pay attention to the psychological description before and after each major choice the heroine makes, and make brief notes.
When encountering historical names, you may skip them for now and look them up together after finishing a passage, to avoid interrupting the rhythm.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I understand this novel without historical background?

You can read it, but your understanding will suffer. The novel involves Florentine political factions and religious movements; without any knowledge of them, characters' motives may seem abrupt. It is advisable to spend a little time on basic background first, or look things up as you read, rather than waiting until you understand everything to begin.

How difficult is the English in this book?

It is moderately to highly difficult. Eliot's sentences are long, her vocabulary rich, and the style carries nineteenth-century literary conventions. Readers with a solid English foundation can attempt it, reading slowly and tolerating the occasional unfamiliar word; if the goal is language learning, an annotated edition read alongside is recommended.

What practical advice is there for reading the electronic edition?

The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain electronic text, best opened in a reader that supports search, making it easy to look up recurring names and places. For a long read, set goals in stages—for example, a certain number of chapters per day—and after finishing, review the chapter titles to help organize the structure.

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About the author

Eliot, George, 1819-1880 Author

George Eliot (1819–1880) was a major novelist of the Victorian era in Britain. Public information about her early education and specific personal experiences is limited, so no speculation is offered here; nevertheless, the nineteen works by her held in this collection show her sustained commitment to long-form fiction. Her representative works include Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Daniel Deronda, Adam Bede, and Felix Holt, the Radical. Her fiction is largely drawn from English provincial and small-town life, and it often uses delicate psychological portrayal and a broad social vision to present the tension between personal choice and moral responsibility. Middlemarch is especially notable for its multi-stranded narrative and its portrait of provincial society, while Silas Marner focuses on loneliness, misunderstanding, and redemption. Her style is steady and restrained, attentive to the interweaving of inner life and social setting, and her work has had a profound influence on the later development of the English novel.