Inspired by an anecdote told to George Eliot by her aunt, ADAM BEDE is notable for its extraordinarily realistic characters and convincing depiction of English rural life, complete with the earthy Derbyshire dialect of the title character. It is the story of Hetty Sorrel, the dairymaid who spurns the working-class Adam, a carpenter, for the faithless lord of the manor, and is abandoned by him after she becomes pregnant. When it was first published, in 1859, the book earned praise for its nuanced and unflinching description of a young woman's fall from grace and for Adam's simple righteousness. But George Eliot's choice of this scandalous subject matter for her first novel also met a great deal of adverse criticism, and only reaffirmed her decision to publish her novels under a pseudonym rather than as Mary Ann Evans, her given name. ADAM BEDE has also become famous for Eliot's groundbreaking defense, in chapter 17, of realism in art: "I aspire to give no more than a faithful account of men and things as the