Silas Marner (Penguin Classics)

Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, existing only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when the money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot's favorite of her novels, combines humor, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.