Silas Marner in Modern Language

Book excerpt: An Old Best-Seller Refreshed for the 21st Century. Silas Marner, a weaver, had been betrayed by his best friend and the woman Marner loved. He sought refuge in a new community and turned his affections from human beings to the accumulation of gold. Since he was friendless in the new community, he became an object of superstition and speculation -- until a orphaned infant was left at his door. As we know today, the best rehabilitation can come from having somebody to love, to care for. The circumstances of life robbed Marner of his accumulated wealth and left him with only the orphan as the object of his affections. The warm story that follows tells a tale familiar to most parents, how having a child transforms lives, focusing our concerns on the new life and away from ourselves. This book has often been assigned reading in literature classes, but students struggle with the original's quaint language and difficult sentence structure. This version has been adapted into modern English to make it much more accessible to the modern reader. It is an old best-seller refreshed for a 21st Century audience.