Adam Bede the first novel written by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) was published in 1859. It was published pseudonymously even though Evans was a well-published and highly respected scholar of her time. The story's plot follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural pastoral and close-knit community in 1799. The novel revolves around a love triangle between beautiful but self-absorbed Hetty Sorrel Captain Arthur Donnithorne the young squire who seduces her Adam Bede her unacknowledged suitor and Dinah Morris Hetty's cousin a fervent virtuous and beautiful Methodist lay preacher.
