Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) is a social novel written by George Eliot about political disputes in a small English town at the time of the First Reform Act of 1832Set during the time of the Reform Act of 1832, the story centres on an election contested by Harold Transome, a local landowner, in the "Radical cause" ("Radical" because Transome's version of "radicalism" isn't radical at all, but rather an application of the term to his politically stagnate lifestyle), contrary to his family's Tory traditions.