Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871–72) is perhaps the masterpiece of a writer now recognized as a major literary figure of the nineteenth century. In this magnificent work George Eliot paints a luminous and spacious landscape of life in a provincial town. With a sure and subtle touch, she draws together the links of the rural network: Dorothea, a modern St Teresa; Dr Lydgate, the young doctor defeated by self and circumstance; Rosamond, a masterly study in triviality and egoism; and the unprepossessing, doomed banker Bulstrode.

Endorsements

'One of the few English novels written for adult people.' — Virginia Woolf

'A Tolstoyan depth and reality.' — Dr Leavis