Product Overview
George Eliot'sVictorian masterpiece:a magnificent portrait of a provincial town and its inhabitants
George Eliots novel,Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novelthe idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the towns equilibriumWill Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorotheas husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the towns elite.Middlemarchdisplays George Eliots clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.This Penguin Classics edition uses the second edition of 1874 and features an introduction and notes by Eliot-biographer Rosemary Ashton. In her introduction, Ashton discusses themes of social change inMiddlemarch, and examines the novel as an imaginative embodiment of Eliot's humanist beliefs.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators.
