Originally published in 1859, "Adam Bede" is the first novel by George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was one of the leading British writers of the Victorian era, as well as a noted journalist, poet, and translator. "Adam Bede" concerns a small, tight-knit, and fictional rural community called Hayslope and the romantic drama that develops between four of its young residents: the title character Adam, a young carpenter, the...

"Written between 1873 and 1884 but not published until 1903, a year after Butler's death, his marvelously uninhibited satire savages Victorian bourgeois values as personified by multiple generations of the Pontifex family. A thinly veiled account of his own upbringing in the bosom of a God-fearing Christian family, Butler's scathingly funny depiction of the self-righteous hypocrisy underlying nineteenth-century domestic life was hailed by George Bernard...

"In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse's daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something...

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church -- the only available shelter from the rain -- and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and...

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack--the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years--comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.

"Territory of New Mexico, 1875. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy needs money to complete the new cathedral he's building in Santa Fe. He comes to see Father Clement Grantaire, pastor of a small parish near the Texas border, for help. Father Grantaire has a checkered past, but he also has an idea: he can use his less-than-priestly skills to obtain money for the cathedral. After a night of gambling, Grantaire wins over a thousand dollars from a group of...

When I started to write The Looking Glass, I intended to create a story about the healing power of hope and love. But as this story developed, a message began to emerge that I had not foreseen, a message about the distorted mirror in which we view ourselves, binding ourselves with shackles of self-doubt and fear. The Looking Glass is aptly named, for it is about seeing the reality of ourselves: to see a true reflection of who we are. It is the story...

The confessions of a clergyman.

"Lord Randolph Gresham has an up and coming career in the Church, and has come to London for the season to find a wife. A feisty and dangerously attractive young woman who insists she'd never marry a clergyman keeps distracting him. This shouldn't be a problem--they'll just avoid each other. When they're forced to sing together, though, the duet is a deeply sensual experience. Verity Sinclair, daughter of the Dean of Chester Cathedral, hasn't changed...