I finished Adam Bede, the first book in my 10 book project! Previously, I had read The Mill and the Floss and Middlemarch by George Eliot. I enjoy her writing a lot and I'm glad I finally got around to reading Adam Bede. I must admit that this was a hard book to get into. About 200 pages in, I was thinking that this book project might have been a big mistake because it was taking me ages to plow through the book. Adam Bede was boring! Really boring and the dialect was hard to read at times. But I pushed on through and about halfway in, it got really good. So good that I was having trouble putting it down. I started to care for the characters and wanted to know what was to become of them. Although, I have to admit. I pretty much hated Hetty. :) I won't give any spoilers here, but I was glad when she pretty much left the story.
You could tell that the country and characters were dear to George Eliot's heart. A few times she, as the author, popped into the story to give perspective on characters and to state why she was writing them in a certain light. At one point, she is sitting down with Adam Bede asking him his take on certain characters. What a modern concept!
This book was printed in 1956 and I love the straight forward, no nonsense way the publisher lets the reader know that they are holding a well designed book.
50 cents is definitely inexpensive for this 868 page book. I don't remember how much I paid for it. There is no price tag on it (I usually keep prices on my books), so I probably picked this up for about 50 cents at a garage sale.
I tried doing research on this Cooper's Cave label, but I couldn't find anything on the web. I'm intrigued by the limited pressing of this edition. I was surprised to see the J in the bottom corner of the book. This means I've owned this book since I was at least 18 years old and moving in with my first roommate. I labeled all of my books in pencil this way to easily deduce my books from a shared bookcase.
Next book: Anna Karenina