Middlemarch by George Eliot | PenguinRandomHouse.com

About Middlemarch

One of the most accomplished and prominent novels of the Victorian era, Middlemarch is an unsurpassed portrait of nineteenth-century English provincial life. Dorothea Brooke is a young woman of fervent ideals who yearns to effect social change yet faces resistance from the society she inhabits. In this epic in a small landscape, Eliot’s large cast of precisely delineated characters and the rich tapestry of their stories result in a wise, compassionate, and astute vision of human nature. As Virginia Woolf declared, George Eliot "was one of the first English novelists to discover that men and women think as well as feel, and the discovery was of great artistic moment."

About Middlemarch

On April 10, 1994, PBS stations nationwide will air the first episode of a lavish six-part Masterpiece Theatre production of Eliot’s brilliant work, Middlemarch, hosted by Russell Baker and produced by Louis Marks. The Modern Library is pleased to offer this official companion edition, complete with tie-in art and printed on acid-free paper. Unabridged.

About Middlemarch

Middlemarch is George Eliot’s masterpiece, a Victorian novel on the grandest scale. Originally published in serial form in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1871-1872, it was at once a critical and popular success. ‘No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative,’ V. S. Pritchett noted. Set in a fictional Midlands town, the novel chronicles nineteenth-century English provincial life through its precisely delineated characters, weaving many stories into one richly textured tapestry. Eliot renders her vast cast with cool irony and intelligence: Dorothea Brooke, the ‘latter-day St. Theresa,’ intense, impassioned, and frustrated; Tertius Lydgate, the idealistic young doctor who comes to Middlemarch fired with the desire to spread the new science of medicine; Fred Vincy and his spoiled, pretentious sister Rosamond; Casaubon, Dorothea’s elderly husband, for whom she feels at first awe and finally pity; and the many lesser characters who people this epic in a small landscape. Unsurpassed in its depiction of human nature, Middlemarch is one of the great works of world literature.

Praise

"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative."
–V. S. Pritchett

About George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, at Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, the last child of an estate agent. During her girlhood, she went through a phase of evangelical piety, but her strong interest in philosophy and her… More about George Eliot

About George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, at Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, the last child of an estate agent. During her girlhood, she went through a phase of evangelical piety, but her strong interest in philosophy and her… More about George Eliot

About George Eliot

Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, at Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, the last child of an estate agent. During her girlhood, she went through a phase of evangelical piety, but her strong interest in philosophy and her… More about George Eliot