num_pages: 744
description: George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-72) is one of the classic novels of English literature and was admired by Virginia Woolf as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.” The complex main plot and many subplots revolve around Dorothea Brooke, an ardent young woman, and her relationship to three Casaubon, a clergyman and scholar twice her age; Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor who shares Dorothea’s enthusiasm for reform but whose flaws compromise his ambitions; and Will Ladislaw, a young man of mysterious origins, romantic temperament, and artistic inclinations. A female Bildungsroman and a study of character and society in the realistic mode pioneered by Balzac, Middlemarch is also an historical novel that offers a panorama of English society in an era of social reform and political agitation. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a rich selection of contextual materials, including contemporary reviews of the novel, other writings by George Eliot (essays, reviews, and criticism), and historical documents pertaining to medical reform, religious freedom, and the advent of the railroads.
language: English
title: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
titlecomplete: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
characters: Celia Brooke, Nicholas Bulstrode, Arthur Brooke, Will Ladislaw, Mary Garth, Rosamond Vincy, Edward Casaubon, Caleb Garth, Joshua Rigg, John Raffles, Harriet Bulstrode, Tertius Lydgate, Camden Farebrother, Dorothea Brooke, Sir James Chettam, Fred Vincy, Peter Featherstone
genres: Audiobook, Historical Fiction, Novels, Literature, Victorian, Classics, British Literature, Romance, Fiction, 19th Century
ratings_count: 158378
places: England, West Midlands, England, Midlands, England
publisher: Broadview Press