Romola
A young woman in fifteenth-century Florence is caught between a scholarly father, a charming and dishonest husband, and the preaching of Savonarola. Eliot did an enormous amount of research for this novel, and it shows in the streets, the factions and the food.
It is the least read of her major books and the one that most divides her admirers. The historical machinery can feel heavy, and the heroine is more virtuous than interesting. But the portrait of a city in religious crisis is serious and unusual, and the chapter in which Savonarola's followers burn their books and paintings is worth the wait.
Public-domain status
First published in 1863. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; George Eliot died in 1880, so this work has been free to republish there since 1951.
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Keep reading
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