Helle-Biblio

Romola is a novel by George Eliot, first published in 1863.

Romola is a historical novel set in the fifteenth century, and is "a deep study of life in the city of Florence from an intellectual, artistic, religious, and social point of view".

The story takes place amidst actual historical events during the Italian Renaissance, and includes in its plot several notable figures from Florentine history.

George Eliot's own favorite among her novels, this novel tells the story of Romola, the intelligent daughter of a blind scholar, who is falling in love with a man who is going to change her life and the politics of Florence in a way she doesn't like.

Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.

In December 2015, BBC Culture polled book critics outside the UK, to give an outsider’s perspective on the best in British literature. Out of 100 listed novels, Middlemarch listed as #1 and Daniel Deronda listed as #70.