Scenes of Clerical Life

novel by Eliot

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Article History

Scenes of Clerical Life, the first novel by George Eliot, comprising three tales that had originally appeared serially in Blackwood’s Magazine from January to October of 1857 and were published together in two volumes in 1858. The stories, noted for their dialogue and characterization, drew upon Eliot’s early experiences with religion in a provincial setting.

The title character of “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton” is an awkward, unpopular clergyman of Shepperton whose hardworking, gentle wife, Milly, dies of exhaustion. “Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story” concerns Barton’s predecessor at Shepperton, whose long-suffering love for a singer, Tina, is briefly satisfied when she, after being spurned by a previous lover, finally consents to marry Gilfil only to die a few months later. In “Janet’s Repentance,” the Reverend Edgar Tryan is a sympathetic clergyman who helps to cure Janet Dempster of alcoholism after she flees her abusive husband, Robert.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.