Middlemarch

It is not a novel about heroes. It is a novel about us.

George Eliot's masterpiece is the greatest English novel about ordinary life, a book that proves that the smallest choices, made in the quietest rooms, shape the world as much as any battle.

Dorothea Brooke, a young woman of ardent spirit and noble ambition, marries the elderly, pedantic scholar Casaubon, hoping to help him with his great (and nonexistent) work. She discovers too late that he is hollow, jealous, and dying. Tertius Lydgate, a brilliant young doctor, arrives in Middlemarch with plans to reform medicine—and marries the beautiful, shallow Rosamond Vincy, who destroys his career with her vanity. Fred Vincy, a lazy young man, must decide whether to become a clergyman (he does not believe) or a farmer (he knows nothing about farming). And Mary Garth, the plain, wise daughter of the town's best man, quietly holds everyone together. Their stories interweave over a thousand pages, and by the end, no one gets what they wanted, but some get what they needed.

This is Eliot at her most wise and compassionate: a novel about the quiet tragedy of missed connections, the comedy of self-deception, and the ordinary heroism of just keeping on. Middlemarch has been called the greatest novel in English—and it is impossible to argue.

• Frequently ranked as one of the greatest novels in the English language, alongside War and Peace and In Search of Lost Time

• Published in eight installments from 1871 to 1872, subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life"

• Explores themes of marriage, ambition, reform, education, and the limits of human understanding

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the most important history is the one happening in their own town.

About the Author

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880), one of the leading novelists of the Victorian era. Born in Warwickshire, she was the daughter of a mill manager. She was deeply religious as a young woman but later rejected her faith, translating controversial works of biblical criticism. She moved to London, became the assistant editor of The Westminster Review, and entered into a scandalous unmarried partnership with the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes, who encouraged her to write fiction. Middlemarch was published when she was in her early fifties, at the height of her powers. The novel was not an immediate bestseller, but its reputation grew steadily, and by the early twentieth century, it was recognized as her masterpiece. Virginia Woolf called it "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Eliot died in 1880, just months after marrying John Walter Cross, a man twenty years her junior. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery in London.