Product 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 men: 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including contemporary reviews of the novel, other writings by George Eliot (essays, reviews, and criticism), and historical documents pertaining to medical reform, religious freedom, and the advent of the railroads.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2220 in Books
• Published on: 1993-12-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Synopsis
This title inculdes introduction and notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent at Canterbury. "Middlemarch" is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetrating analysis of the life of an English provincial town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host of other paradigm characters who illuminate the condition of English life in the mid-nineteenth century.

About the Author
David Carroll is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster. He edited George Eliot: The Critical Heritage (1971), and the Clarendon edition of Middlemarch (1986). He is joint General Editor of the Longman Literature in English Series.
Felicia Bonaparte is Professor of English at the City University of New York and has written extensively on George Eliot. Among her other publications is the experimental biography The Gypsy-Bachelor of Manchester: The Life of Mrs Gaskell's Demon (1992).

Customer Reviews

not a favourite.
I found this book very long and dull. I enjoyed parts of the story but Often the storytelling is replaced by pages and pages of politics.
It has its devotees though and is not entirely without merit so I guess all must judge for themselves. I really wanted to enjoy it but it just didn't press the right buttons for me.

I couldn't reccomend it.

Brilliant book, expertly read
It really shows that Carole Boyd, who reads this audio version, has spent years working on The Archers. She easily holds your attention and all the characters are distinguishable from each other. The reading is complemented by short sections of music at appropriate points. I could listen to it repeatedly.

Simply the Best
Quite simply the greatest novel written in the English language. Beautifully written and full of insight into the human condition.