Middlemarch
by George Eliot
Assigned by 5 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- 1871-1872
- Form
- Novel
- Language
- English
- Length
- Epic · 880 ppover 700 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendMiddlemarchPenguin Classics, 2003Rosemary Ashton's edition with good notes at a reasonable price.
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A novel of a Midlands town in the years around the 1832 Reform Bill, following several intertwined lives. Dorothea Brooke, ardent and idealistic, marries the dry scholar Casaubon and learns what she has done; the young doctor Lydgate, ambitious to reform medicine, marries the pretty Rosamond Vincy and is slowly ruined; the banker Bulstrode's past catches up with him; Fred Vincy and Mary Garth find their way. Eliot's narrator weighs every character with sympathy and irony alike.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Middlemarch are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.
