Mary Anne Evans took the pen name George Eliot to prevent her being pigeon-holed as an author of 'light romantic fiction' the only branch of literature open to females in the England of her time. Published in 1861, Eliot uses Silas Marner to skillfully portray the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution, and her own trenchant views on politics, religion and the hypocrisy of the gentry. But in its essence, the book concerns human redemption, telling the tale of an embittered lonely man, crushed by unjust fortune, whose world is utterly changed by his care and love for an orphan child.