Felix Holt - The Radical

Published in 1866 by Blackwood, Felix Holt, the Radical, presents a nostalgic view of provincial England around the time of the 1832 Reform Act. The eponymous Holt is, as the title suggests, an aspiring radical politician, riding the popular support for the reform bill. The plot revolves around a love triangle with Holt on one side, his fellow radical Harold Transome on the other and Esther Lyon, the step-daughter of a local dissenting minister in the middle. True to her realist leanings, Eliot concerns herself not with the political aspects of the Reform Bill but with the social change it brings. The novel marked a return to her Midlands setting following the less than successful Romala. It also saw her return to Backwoods as a publisher.