Adam Bede is the first novel by English author George Eliot, first published in 1859. The novel is set in the fictional community of Hayslope—a rural, pastoral, and close-knit community—in 1799. It revolves around a love “rectangle” among the 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.