This first film adaptation of George Eliot 's classic novel was written by Maggie Wadey , who wrote the much-praised adaptation of Precious Bane. Two young men, the carpenter Adam Bede and the squire Arthur Donnithorne , find themselves competing for the love of the beautiful dairymaid Hetty Sorrel. It is a triangle which eventually leads to tragedy for all of them. When Adam Bede was published in 1859 it was greeted as the work of a major new talent. Charles Dickens was sure the author was a woman. He was right, for George Eliot was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans , a country girl who told her publisher that Adam Bede would be full of "the breath of cows and the scent of hay".