Middlemarch
by George Eliot
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Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is exactly what it claims. Its multiple plots center around the inhabitants of a fictitious Midlands town and their evolving relationships to each other. It is critical of social class, ambition and marriage, and religion. It is commonly considered one of the masterpieces of English writing, and Virginia Woolf described it as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".Tags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Cecrow One reader's relationship with this novel; also some biography of Eliot and a literary criticism.
30
BookshelfMonstrosity These 19th-century classics portray complex romantic relationships with vivid descriptions and a strong sense of place. With intricate, twisting plots, both offer their protagonists bleak outlooks that end in satisfying resolutions.
41
thesmellofbooks The Getting of Wisdom is the rare sort of book that provokes deep self-reflection and a nudge in the direction of peace-making with self and life, and in this way brings to mind [[George Eliot]]'s [Middlemarch].
I am gobsmacked. The novel begins as an entertaining tale of a headstrong young Australian girl going to meet the world at boarding school. It gradually evolves into a subtle, simple, and stunningly real observation of the pressures of conformity and the intolerance of naïveté, which, when paired with a strong desire to be accepted, can lead to many and often rending responses in an imaginative young person.
Yet it is not a tragedy. I am left moved, affectionate, a little worried about the future, and yet joyful at the intactness of the protagonist's resilient soul.
Bravo, Ms Richardson.
10
kara.shamy Similar -- almost unique really -- in their tremendous breadth and depth...
17
Member Reviews
Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
Middlemarch is truly one of the greatest novel's I've ever read. With the possible exception of show more Moby-Dick, it's the most impressive English language novel of the 19th century. The psychological depth with which Eliot imbues her characters is unparalleled. Her wit, sophistication, and literary acumen are present on every page. Perhaps most impressively, the novel manages to express profound moral understanding without ever becoming moralizing. Eliot's philosophical insights into the nature of virtue, sympathy, and social relationships seems to me unparalleled by Dickens, Twain, Dostoevsky, James, Flaubert, or any of the other comparable writers of her era. The only criticism I can muster is that occasionally her syntax can become a bit unwieldy, but this criticism can be leveled (often more justifiably) against any novelist of the 19th century. As such, this observation does nothing to weaken my admiration for Eliot's work. In sum, Middlemarch is something special—something I would recommend to anyone who claims a love of great literature. show less
Middlemarch is truly one of the greatest novel's I've ever read. With the possible exception of show more Moby-Dick, it's the most impressive English language novel of the 19th century. The psychological depth with which Eliot imbues her characters is unparalleled. Her wit, sophistication, and literary acumen are present on every page. Perhaps most impressively, the novel manages to express profound moral understanding without ever becoming moralizing. Eliot's philosophical insights into the nature of virtue, sympathy, and social relationships seems to me unparalleled by Dickens, Twain, Dostoevsky, James, Flaubert, or any of the other comparable writers of her era. The only criticism I can muster is that occasionally her syntax can become a bit unwieldy, but this criticism can be leveled (often more justifiably) against any novelist of the 19th century. As such, this observation does nothing to weaken my admiration for Eliot's work. In sum, Middlemarch is something special—something I would recommend to anyone who claims a love of great literature. show less
Six-word review: Humanity closely observed and lovingly rendered.
Extended review:
No author has ever been so unfailingly compassionate toward her characters. Even the weak, vain, and reprehensible ones are human, their flaws and vices a matter of degree and nothing black or white. With her gift of insight, George Eliot shows us their hearts, and with her faceted mirrors she casts their reflections onto us. Her capacity for rendering inner lives that ring with truth is unsurpassed.
Middlemarch is the name of a fictitious small English town of the early nineteenth century. Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the narrative follows several characters whose stories are intertwined. Like so many other British novels from serious to comic, show more it seems to focus greatest attention on two things: marriage and money. But Eliot does not use stock characters or easy clichés. The idealistic young woman, the obsessed cleric, the troubled doctor, his indulged, imprudent young wife, and all the others, both major and minor, possess the particularity that confers verisimilitude and the universality that speaks to readers across time, space, and circumstance.
Here is a small selection of quotes that illustrate Eliot's style, her wit, and her warmth. I read a Kindle edition, so I can't supply page numbers; I'll give chapter references instead.
• Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. (Book I, Chapter I)
• "He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.
"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader. (Book I, Chapter VIII)
• And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. (Book I, Chapter IX)
• Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected to make no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. (Book II, Chapter I)
• It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as possible, that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and make clear to himself what God's glory required. (Book II, Chapter IV)
• [O]ne's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated. (Book II, Chapter IV)
• [I]t was plain that a vicar might be adored by his womankind as the king of men and preachers, and yet be held by them to stand in much need of their direction. (Book II, Chapter V)
• Besides, he was a likeable man, sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends. (Book II, Chapter VI)
• There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet. (Book II, Chapter VII)
• ...the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. (Book II, Chapter VIII)
• If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. (Book II, Chapter VIII)
• We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves. (Book II, Chapter IX)
These are but a sampling of the first two books of eight. I won't go on, as I could do for pages, but I must add this beautiful evocation of two people falling in love:
• Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there. (Book IV, Chapter IV)
Eliot's words are, to me, the superlatively rendered expression of a sublime sensibility. I won't try to persuade anyone of that who doesn't see it the same way. I'll just say this: when I have no more than five stars to award to a novel like Middlemarch, it's hard to give that many to anything else. show less
Extended review:
No author has ever been so unfailingly compassionate toward her characters. Even the weak, vain, and reprehensible ones are human, their flaws and vices a matter of degree and nothing black or white. With her gift of insight, George Eliot shows us their hearts, and with her faceted mirrors she casts their reflections onto us. Her capacity for rendering inner lives that ring with truth is unsurpassed.
Middlemarch is the name of a fictitious small English town of the early nineteenth century. Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the narrative follows several characters whose stories are intertwined. Like so many other British novels from serious to comic, show more it seems to focus greatest attention on two things: marriage and money. But Eliot does not use stock characters or easy clichés. The idealistic young woman, the obsessed cleric, the troubled doctor, his indulged, imprudent young wife, and all the others, both major and minor, possess the particularity that confers verisimilitude and the universality that speaks to readers across time, space, and circumstance.
Here is a small selection of quotes that illustrate Eliot's style, her wit, and her warmth. I read a Kindle edition, so I can't supply page numbers; I'll give chapter references instead.
• Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. (Book I, Chapter I)
• "He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.
"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader. (Book I, Chapter VIII)
• And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. (Book I, Chapter IX)
• Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected to make no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. (Book II, Chapter I)
• It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as possible, that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust his motives, and make clear to himself what God's glory required. (Book II, Chapter IV)
• [O]ne's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find deprecated. (Book II, Chapter IV)
• [I]t was plain that a vicar might be adored by his womankind as the king of men and preachers, and yet be held by them to stand in much need of their direction. (Book II, Chapter V)
• Besides, he was a likeable man, sweet-tempered, ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our friends. (Book II, Chapter VI)
• There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet. (Book II, Chapter VII)
• ...the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. (Book II, Chapter VIII)
• If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity. (Book II, Chapter VIII)
• We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves. (Book II, Chapter IX)
These are but a sampling of the first two books of eight. I won't go on, as I could do for pages, but I must add this beautiful evocation of two people falling in love:
• Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there. (Book IV, Chapter IV)
Eliot's words are, to me, the superlatively rendered expression of a sublime sensibility. I won't try to persuade anyone of that who doesn't see it the same way. I'll just say this: when I have no more than five stars to award to a novel like Middlemarch, it's hard to give that many to anything else. show less
This was supposed to be one of my last books for 2022. Then I realized it is worth reading it a bit slower, book by book, and letting it settle a bit. I've read it before although it had been awhile - I was still in high school when I met the denizens of Middlemarch for the last time and my memories had lost most of the details (and curiously enough, some of the characters).
Published in 1871-1872, the story takes place mostly in the invented town of Middlemarch (with a quick stop in Rome, Italy) and is set 40 years earlier (in 1829-1832 to be exact). Using an invented town allows Eliot to set things where she needs them instead of getting all tangled in real geography and history. And yet, in a lot of ways, Middlemarch is England in show more the early 1830s, much more than any depiction of a real town in other novels.
On the surface, the novel is very similar to the first book by Eliot - the 1858 collection "Scenes of Clerical Life" covers a lot of the same topics and you can even see some of the later novels scenes shadows in the earlier ones. And yet, Middlemarch feels a lot more mature and complete - it is a slice of life story about 4 women and the men they marry and love (not always the same ones) and about the changing England of the 1830s. This kind of novels can end up with characters who read more like types than like real people (and the early stories did have a bit of that happening). But here, all of the characters are fully realized - even the ones we see for a few minutes only - they all are real people with both good and bad mixed into their characters.
I call it slice of life but that does not really do justice to the scope of the novel. It is a romance (or 3). It is a coming of age story. It is a chronicle of a time and place. And it is neither of those things and all of those things mixed into one glorious novel. And it is worth the reread and the time required to actually work through it - because it slows you down and makes you read slower than usual - there is such abundance of details and people that you need time to catalog and acknowledge them in your head - usually without realizing that you are doing it. That verbosity may sound unappealing but every word and detail is necessary and required. And my only problem when I closed the last page was that I had to part from the good (and not so good people) of Middlemarch. show less
Published in 1871-1872, the story takes place mostly in the invented town of Middlemarch (with a quick stop in Rome, Italy) and is set 40 years earlier (in 1829-1832 to be exact). Using an invented town allows Eliot to set things where she needs them instead of getting all tangled in real geography and history. And yet, in a lot of ways, Middlemarch is England in show more the early 1830s, much more than any depiction of a real town in other novels.
On the surface, the novel is very similar to the first book by Eliot - the 1858 collection "Scenes of Clerical Life" covers a lot of the same topics and you can even see some of the later novels scenes shadows in the earlier ones. And yet, Middlemarch feels a lot more mature and complete - it is a slice of life story about 4 women and the men they marry and love (not always the same ones) and about the changing England of the 1830s. This kind of novels can end up with characters who read more like types than like real people (and the early stories did have a bit of that happening). But here, all of the characters are fully realized - even the ones we see for a few minutes only - they all are real people with both good and bad mixed into their characters.
I call it slice of life but that does not really do justice to the scope of the novel. It is a romance (or 3). It is a coming of age story. It is a chronicle of a time and place. And it is neither of those things and all of those things mixed into one glorious novel. And it is worth the reread and the time required to actually work through it - because it slows you down and makes you read slower than usual - there is such abundance of details and people that you need time to catalog and acknowledge them in your head - usually without realizing that you are doing it. That verbosity may sound unappealing but every word and detail is necessary and required. And my only problem when I closed the last page was that I had to part from the good (and not so good people) of Middlemarch. show less
This classic novel has been languishing on my bookshelf for more than a decade in the 'Books I Really Ought To Read' corner of shame so I was very glad that the Group Reads - Literature group picked it for their next book. It moved me to pick it up and stick with it, not to be seduced away by shorter 200-page-reads.
I will state up front that I just loved this book. I approached it expecting to enjoy it, certainly to appreciated it for its classical literary merit, but not necessarily to love it in the way I do some of my favourite more contemporary novels. How wrong I was! I am used to reading classic novels and commenting on their literary merit as if they are a genre apart from their modern counterparts, but what struck me about show more Middlemarch was how alive and contemporary it was - I raced through to the end empathising and identifying with the characters and situations from my modern perspective. Much has been written about Eliot's depth of characterisation and layered storytelling, about her use of language and development of themes - all undeniably valid. However, what is sometimes missed in these lofty critiques is that Middlemarch is a cracking tale and a great love story. It's one of those rare novels that you live with and are absorbed by so completely and for so long, that on finishing it is as if you have lost a group of friends.
Admittedly, in the beginning it took a while to understand where Eliot was heading with the many different character threads and her somewhat verbose style took a few chapters to get into. If you find this difficult, I can only recommend you stick with it. This book more than returns the favour by the end and I found I whipped through the second half, desperate to find out how it would all end up for my favourites.
Possibly the best demonstration of its pulling power is that the characters grow and develop so much over the course of the novel that I know that I will re-read it sometime in the future because I want to go back to the early sections knowing what I do now about how each individual ends up.
The most worthwhile read I've had in a long, long while and a rare 5 stars from me! show less
I will state up front that I just loved this book. I approached it expecting to enjoy it, certainly to appreciated it for its classical literary merit, but not necessarily to love it in the way I do some of my favourite more contemporary novels. How wrong I was! I am used to reading classic novels and commenting on their literary merit as if they are a genre apart from their modern counterparts, but what struck me about show more Middlemarch was how alive and contemporary it was - I raced through to the end empathising and identifying with the characters and situations from my modern perspective. Much has been written about Eliot's depth of characterisation and layered storytelling, about her use of language and development of themes - all undeniably valid. However, what is sometimes missed in these lofty critiques is that Middlemarch is a cracking tale and a great love story. It's one of those rare novels that you live with and are absorbed by so completely and for so long, that on finishing it is as if you have lost a group of friends.
Admittedly, in the beginning it took a while to understand where Eliot was heading with the many different character threads and her somewhat verbose style took a few chapters to get into. If you find this difficult, I can only recommend you stick with it. This book more than returns the favour by the end and I found I whipped through the second half, desperate to find out how it would all end up for my favourites.
Possibly the best demonstration of its pulling power is that the characters grow and develop so much over the course of the novel that I know that I will re-read it sometime in the future because I want to go back to the early sections knowing what I do now about how each individual ends up.
The most worthwhile read I've had in a long, long while and a rare 5 stars from me! show less
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this.
It was not a good idea to read this book alongside The red and the black, that cold research lab where only the main character is real and all the others are plot devices to trigger psychological and/or political observations. It made Stendhal’s books look so much worse, and Eliot’s book so much superior. But Middlemarch isn’t just great in comparison, it’s great, full stop.
Eliot's quiet snarkiness worked its magic on me from the first few pages, where there are plenty of leisurely descriptions of country life that she then undercuts with a precisely timed placing of a tongue in her cheek. Expertly done, and it works on two levels -- "let me tell you how these people think things work", and show more "I'll make a joke so you and I both know that things are actually more complex than that; but we still understand why these people think so". Good stuff.
Most of this book centres around the travails of four couples and their immediate families (or lack thereof). That means there’s a fairly large cast to keep track of, but that is exactly where this book’s strength lies: their interactions and conflicts are brilliantly developed. All her characters feel like real, three-dimensional people who act in accordance with their convincingly-portrayed psychological makeup. Relatively few of the conflicts in this book are due to coincidence; it’s real-seeming characters behaving in uncontrived but conflicting ways. Very well done, that. Eliot also makes this seem so effortless and genuine and unartificial, which is another big mark in her favour. And finally, while she cares about all her characters (the omniscient authorial voice will sometimes straight-up tell readers as much), she does not shrink back from subjecting them to ruin and despair -- her caring for these characters does emphatically not trump the consequences of their unfavourable (in)actions or incompatible desires.
This was a wonderful read by an author who knows what they are doing. Those are the best books. show less
It was not a good idea to read this book alongside The red and the black, that cold research lab where only the main character is real and all the others are plot devices to trigger psychological and/or political observations. It made Stendhal’s books look so much worse, and Eliot’s book so much superior. But Middlemarch isn’t just great in comparison, it’s great, full stop.
Eliot's quiet snarkiness worked its magic on me from the first few pages, where there are plenty of leisurely descriptions of country life that she then undercuts with a precisely timed placing of a tongue in her cheek. Expertly done, and it works on two levels -- "let me tell you how these people think things work", and show more "I'll make a joke so you and I both know that things are actually more complex than that; but we still understand why these people think so". Good stuff.
Most of this book centres around the travails of four couples and their immediate families (or lack thereof). That means there’s a fairly large cast to keep track of, but that is exactly where this book’s strength lies: their interactions and conflicts are brilliantly developed. All her characters feel like real, three-dimensional people who act in accordance with their convincingly-portrayed psychological makeup. Relatively few of the conflicts in this book are due to coincidence; it’s real-seeming characters behaving in uncontrived but conflicting ways. Very well done, that. Eliot also makes this seem so effortless and genuine and unartificial, which is another big mark in her favour. And finally, while she cares about all her characters (the omniscient authorial voice will sometimes straight-up tell readers as much), she does not shrink back from subjecting them to ruin and despair -- her caring for these characters does emphatically not trump the consequences of their unfavourable (in)actions or incompatible desires.
This was a wonderful read by an author who knows what they are doing. Those are the best books. show less
So, it took me two months to read this one start to finish, but I did it. And I must say, I enjoyed it. Although I think George Eliot could have told the story just as well in 700 pages as in 840, there weren't any obvious spots I'd cut; no detailed accounts of politics at the time or how much things cost or nineteenth-century fishing practices.
I loved Dorothea most of any character, mostly because the mistakes she made---which were fairly big---were all made in a spirit of self-sacrifice and doing the right thing. The other characters in the novel run into trouble when they start acting in narrow self-interest. If you live in Middlemarch and lack self-reflection, Eliot has it in for you.
Of course, even with ample self-reflection, that show more doesn't necessarily mean everything's going to be coming up roses for you. This is a realistic book in the sense that the problems people face don't have clear-cut solutions, and even the "happy" endings aren't unequivocally happy.
But Dorothea is awesome because she's unrelenting about following her convictions, no matter what kind of discomfort it leads her into. Even when she's making really big errors in judgement, I still love her.
Dorothea is the agent of the only totally genuine conversation of the entire novel---and that doesn't happen until Chapter 81, nearly 800 pages into the book. This is why I think this book took so long to read: Things couldn't happen quickly because no one was being straight with anyone else. Everyone's calculating what they should say based on how they think the other person will react or how they want to make the other person react, and in the meantime acting behind each others' backs, and it's enough to make me want to pull my hair out sometimes. Just say what you mean, Middlemarchers! Jeez, Louise!
For the rest of the review, please visit my blog, show less
I loved Dorothea most of any character, mostly because the mistakes she made---which were fairly big---were all made in a spirit of self-sacrifice and doing the right thing. The other characters in the novel run into trouble when they start acting in narrow self-interest. If you live in Middlemarch and lack self-reflection, Eliot has it in for you.
Of course, even with ample self-reflection, that show more doesn't necessarily mean everything's going to be coming up roses for you. This is a realistic book in the sense that the problems people face don't have clear-cut solutions, and even the "happy" endings aren't unequivocally happy.
But Dorothea is awesome because she's unrelenting about following her convictions, no matter what kind of discomfort it leads her into. Even when she's making really big errors in judgement, I still love her.
Dorothea is the agent of the only totally genuine conversation of the entire novel---and that doesn't happen until Chapter 81, nearly 800 pages into the book. This is why I think this book took so long to read: Things couldn't happen quickly because no one was being straight with anyone else. Everyone's calculating what they should say based on how they think the other person will react or how they want to make the other person react, and in the meantime acting behind each others' backs, and it's enough to make me want to pull my hair out sometimes. Just say what you mean, Middlemarchers! Jeez, Louise!
For the rest of the review, please visit my blog, show less
The finest English novel of any period, without any doubt. Middlemarch established Eliot's place as the foremost literary figure of her age. It is about everyday life in a rural community around the time of the first Reform Bill of 1832. Set in a period some 40 years before it was written, its characters fall into established groups. There are the entrenched rich: the silly but enthusiastic Mr. Brooke; the solid if unimaginative Sir James Chettam; and the morally energetic but naive Dorothea Brooke. There are those in the industrious middle class: the honest workman Caleb Garth; the sanctimonious banker Nicholas Bulstrode; and the potential recruit to committed work Fred Vincy. And there are the creative (or allegedly creative) spirits: show more the scientific Lydgate; the scholarly Casaubon; and the poetic Ladislaw. These are only a sampling of the vast and variegated cast of Middlemarch.
While many of these characters are simple sketches meant to exemplify a singular trait or moral attribute, the most interesting ones: Lydgate, Fred Vincy, Dorothea, Ladislaw, Bulstrode, have mixed natures. Eliot seems to have conceived of human character as resembling a chemical reaction in which a large number of potentially important variables are present but only some are activated. The direction a life takes becomes a matter of which variables are activated and which are not, something that lies, at least partially, within the individual's power to control. Eliot shows how a character's resolve can be weakened and aspects of human nature, endearing or harmless in youth, can become toxic later in life. By the same token, she also demonstrates the reverse, expressed in Dorothea's rejoinder to Farebrother: "Then [character] may be rescued and healed." The novels acknowledge the possibility of change for the better. An important theme is a critique of power dynamics in relationships.
Dorothea Brooke, the heroine of Middlemarch, is a young woman poised on the verge of possibly achieving a greater life for herself, given the intelligence and talents with which she begins her adult life. Like Gwendolen Harleth, she makes a disastrous marriage, marrying a middle-aged scholar thinking she will share with him a richly rewarding intellectual existence. Instead she finds he is a desiccated stick of a man and a pedant. By the novel's close Dorothea has received an education of sorts, ending not as a great social reformer or inspiring religious figure but simply as the wife of a progressive young member of Parliament. Her marriage to scholar Edward Casaubon, on whom she claimed her ticket to a great future, has only resulted in pain and disillusion.
Virginia Woolf asserted that George Eliot wrote novels for grown up people. Kathryn Hughes in her biography of Eliot wrote, "Middlemarch represents George Eliot's most comprehensive and finely rendered view of human experience. It is a vast, inclusive 'Study of Provincial Life', setting out her beliefs about how society works, how it supports and thwarts the individuals who compose it, and how an accommodation can be made between the two. It is, in effect, an answer to all those correspondents and callers who entreated Marian Lewes: 'how must I live now?'"
This is a book that makes us understand in depth the nature of family and intimate relationships and the conflicts and difficulties that may arise within them. It is certainly the greatest novel of the nineteenth century, after Dostoyevsky. show less
While many of these characters are simple sketches meant to exemplify a singular trait or moral attribute, the most interesting ones: Lydgate, Fred Vincy, Dorothea, Ladislaw, Bulstrode, have mixed natures. Eliot seems to have conceived of human character as resembling a chemical reaction in which a large number of potentially important variables are present but only some are activated. The direction a life takes becomes a matter of which variables are activated and which are not, something that lies, at least partially, within the individual's power to control. Eliot shows how a character's resolve can be weakened and aspects of human nature, endearing or harmless in youth, can become toxic later in life. By the same token, she also demonstrates the reverse, expressed in Dorothea's rejoinder to Farebrother: "Then [character] may be rescued and healed." The novels acknowledge the possibility of change for the better. An important theme is a critique of power dynamics in relationships.
Dorothea Brooke, the heroine of Middlemarch, is a young woman poised on the verge of possibly achieving a greater life for herself, given the intelligence and talents with which she begins her adult life. Like Gwendolen Harleth, she makes a disastrous marriage, marrying a middle-aged scholar thinking she will share with him a richly rewarding intellectual existence. Instead she finds he is a desiccated stick of a man and a pedant. By the novel's close Dorothea has received an education of sorts, ending not as a great social reformer or inspiring religious figure but simply as the wife of a progressive young member of Parliament. Her marriage to scholar Edward Casaubon, on whom she claimed her ticket to a great future, has only resulted in pain and disillusion.
Virginia Woolf asserted that George Eliot wrote novels for grown up people. Kathryn Hughes in her biography of Eliot wrote, "Middlemarch represents George Eliot's most comprehensive and finely rendered view of human experience. It is a vast, inclusive 'Study of Provincial Life', setting out her beliefs about how society works, how it supports and thwarts the individuals who compose it, and how an accommodation can be made between the two. It is, in effect, an answer to all those correspondents and callers who entreated Marian Lewes: 'how must I live now?'"
This is a book that makes us understand in depth the nature of family and intimate relationships and the conflicts and difficulties that may arise within them. It is certainly the greatest novel of the nineteenth century, after Dostoyevsky. show less
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Talk Discussions
Past Discussions
Victorian Readalong Q4: Middlemarch by George Eliot in Club Read 2022 (December 2022)
Group Read: Middlemarch, Second Thread in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (October 2018)
Middlemarch: The Chatty Bits (Spoilers Go Here) in The Green Dragon (March 2015)
Middlemarch Group Read 2014 in 75 Books Challenge for 2014 (August 2014)
Middlemarch group read in 2014 Category Challenge (April 2014)
Group Read: Middlemarch, Third Thread in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (February 2011)
Group Read: Middlemarch in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (November 2010)
***Group Read: Middlemarch Books 7-8 in 1001 Books to read before you die (September 2010)
***Group Read: Middlemarch Books 5-6 in 1001 Books to read before you die (August 2010)
***Group Read: Middlemarch Books 3-4 in 1001 Books to read before you die (August 2010)
***Group Read: Middlemarch Prelude & Books 1-2 in 1001 Books to read before you die (August 2010)
Middlemarch in Victoriana (December 2009)
Middlemarch: Book I in Group Reads - Literature (May 2008)
Middlemarch (Spoilers Here) in Connecticut Nutmeggers (March 2008)
Middlemarch (SPOILER FREE) in Connecticut Nutmeggers (August 2007)
Author Information
379+ Works 62,114 Members
George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans on a Warwickshire farm in England, where she spent almost all of her early life. She received a modest local education and was particularly influenced by one of her teachers, an extremely religious woman whom the novelist would later use as a model for various characters. Eliot read extensively, and was show more particularly drawn to the romantic poets and German literature. In 1849, after the death of her father, she went to London and became assistant editor of the Westminster Review, a radical magazine. She soon began publishing sketches of country life in London magazines. At about his time Eliot began her lifelong relationship with George Henry Lewes. A married man, Lewes could not marry Eliot, but they lived together until Lewes's death. Eliot's sketches were well received, and soon after she followed with her first novel, Adam Bede (1859). She took the pen name "George Eliot" because she believed the public would take a male author more seriously. Like all of Eliot's best work, The Mill on the Floss (1860), is based in large part on her own life and her relationship with her brother. In it she begins to explore male-female relations and the way people's personalities determine their relationships with others. She returns to this theme in Silas Mariner (1861), in which she examines the changes brought about in life and personality of a miser through the love of a little girl. In 1863, Eliot published Romola. Set against the political intrigue of Florence, Italy, of the 1490's, the book chronicles the spiritual journey of a passionate young woman. Eliot's greatest achievement is almost certainly Middlemarch (1871). Here she paints her most detailed picture of English country life, and explores most deeply the frustrations of an intelligent woman with no outlet for her aspirations. This novel is now regarded as one of the major works of the Victorian era and one of the greatest works of fiction in English. Eliot's last work was Daniel Deronda. In that work, Daniel, the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, gradually becomes interested in Jewish culture and then discovers his own Jewish heritage. He eventually goes to live in Palestine. Because of the way in which she explored character and extended the range of subject matter to include simple country life, Eliot is now considered to be a major figure in the development of the novel. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery, North London, England, next to her common-law husband, George Henry Lewes. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Gouden Reeks (6)
Modern Library Giant (isbn)
Penguin Clothbound Classics (2011)
Oneworld Classics (125)
Penguin English Library, 2012 series (2012-09)
Perpetua reeks (72)
Everyman's Library (854-855)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
The Works of George Eliot: Vol. I - Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Romola; Vol. II -- Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial life, Daniel Deronda; Vol. III -- Felix Holt, The Radical, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, Brother Jacob,Scenes from Clerical Life by George Eliot (indirect)
90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.1): Novels, Poetry, Plays, Short Stories, Essays, Psychology & Philosophy by Various
Classic British Fiction: Six novels by George Eliot, in a single file, improved 8/23/2010 by George Eliot
George Eliot Six Pack - Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, The Mill on the Floss and Adam Bede (Illustrated with links to free ... all six books) (Six Pack Classics Book 8) by George Eliot
Works of George Eliot. The Mill on the Floss, Daniel Deronda, Adam Bede, Middlemarch, The Lifted Veil & more. (mobi) by George Eliot
George Eliot's Works: Adam Bede/Daniel Deronda/Felix Holt and Clerical Life/Middlemarch/Mill on the Floss/Romola (6 vols) by George Eliot
Novels of George Eliot in Five Volumes with Illustrations: Adam Bede; The Mill in the Floss; Silas Marner; Clerical Life; Felix Holt; Middlemarch by George Eliot
George Elliot Works: 7 books - Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Daniel Deronda, Romola, Impressions of Theophrastus Such..., Silas Marner, Felix Holt, the Radical (George Elliot Works, 7 of ? in set) by George Elliot
George Eliot Collection: The Complete Novels, Short Stories, Poems and Essays (Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Lifted Veil...) by George Eliot
George Eliot's Works (Six Volumes): Adam Bede, Scenes of Clerical Life, Middlemarch, The Mill On the Floss, Daniel Deronda, Felix Holt (The Radical), The Spanish Gypsy, Jubal and Other Poems, Romola, Theophrastus Such by George Eliot
The Complete Novels of George Eliot - All 9 Novels in One Edition: Adam Bede, The Lifted Veil, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Brother Jacob, ... the Radical, Middlemarch & Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
George Eliot's Works 5 Volumes Romola,The Mill On The Floss,Middlemarch,Daniel Deronda,Felix Holt by George Eliot
Contains
Has the adaptation
Is abridged in
Has as a reference guide/companion
Has as a study
The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life by Edward Mendelson
George Eliot: Adam Bede, Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch (Icon Reader's Guides to Essential Criticism) by Lucie Armitt
Philosophy and the Novel: Philosophical Aspects of "Middlemarch", "Anna Karenina", "The Brothers Karamazov", "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" by Peter Jones
The Business of the Novel: Economics, Aesthetics and the Case of Middlemarch (Literary Texts and the Popular Marketplace) by Simon R. Frost
Sisters in Literature: Female Sexuality in "Antigone", "Middlemarch", Howards End" and "Women in Love" by Masako Hirai
Has as a supplement
Has as a commentary on the text
Has as a student's study guide
Has as a teacher's guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Middlemarch
- Original title
- Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life
- Original publication date
- 1872
- People/Characters
- Dorothea Brooke; Doctor Tertius Lydgate; Edward Casaubon; Mary Garth; Rosamond Vincy; Sir James Chettam (show all 17); Will Ladislaw; Fred Vincy; Mr Farebrother; Caleb Garth; Nicholas Bulstrode; John Raffles; Celia Brooke; Peter Featherstone; Mrs. Cadwallader; Mr. Brooke; Susan Garth
- Important places
- Middlemarch, Midlands, England, UK (fictional)
- Important events
- Death of King Georg IV
- Related movies
- Middlemarch (1994 | IMDb); Middlemarch (1968 | IMDb); Middlemarch (2011 | IMDb)
- First words
- Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness ... (show all)at the thought of the little girl waling forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? (Prelude)
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. - Quotations
- Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
Riding was an indulgence which she allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it.
Some discouragement, some faintness of the heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies i... (show all)n the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotions of mankind.
At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman to write legibly, or with a hand in the least suitable to a clerk. Fred wrote the letters demanded in a hand as gentlemanly as that of any viscount or bishop of... (show all) the day; the vowels were all alike and the consonants only distinguishable as turning up or down, the strokes had a blotted solidity and the letters disdained to keep the line -- in short, it was a manuscript of that venerable kind easy to interpret when you know beforehand what the writer means.
Even while we are talking and meditating about the earth's orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is the stable earth and the changing day. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats nod sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognizable deed. (Prelude) - Original language
- English
- Canonical LCC
- PR4662.A2 A83 1994
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