Middlemarch (Harper Perennial Deluxe Editions) - Softcover

Eliot, George; Prose, Francine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062356143 ISBN 13: 9780062356147

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2015

Synopsis

A deluxe Harper Perennial Legacy Edition, with an introduction from Francine Prose, award-winning and New York Times best-selling author of Reading Like a Writer

George Eliot's beloved classic novel--hailed by Virginia Woolf as "masterful"--follows the life, loves, foibles, and politics of the residents of a fictional English town set amid the social unrest during the Industrial Revolution.

A sprawling work set in a provincial English town, Middlemarch boasts a large cast of characters whose stories interweave against a backdrop of political upheaval.

Instead of choosing to wed a wealthy landowner and settle for a comfortable life, Dorothea Brooke decides to marry Edward Casaubon--a dull scholar who is her senior by a few decades. Dorothea hopes the union will afford her with the opportunity to share in her husband's intellectual pursuits, but even her best efforts can't save the disastrous marriage. Meanwhile, idealistic doctor Tertius Lydgate has progressive ideas about the medical field, and he believes the village of Middlemarch is the place that will embrace his beliefs. But when he weds Rosamond Vincy, the mayor's beautiful daughter, his ideals come into stark contrast with his new bride's materialism and vanity, dooming their marriage from the start.

Lastly, Rosamond's brother, Fred, is reluctantly destined for the Church. But his childhood sweetheart Mary Garth refuses to accept him until he settles into a more suitable career and one that interests him. But when circumstances lead to Fred losing a sizeable fortune that sets off a calamitous turn of events, he must reevaluate the choices he has made.

As The Guardian notes, Middlemarch "looms above the mid-Victorian literary landscape like a cathedral of words," offering readers a pivotal shaping of literary realism. Middlemarch is a masterwork of fiction that is as timely today as when it was first published.

About this title

Review

""Middlemarch," the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."
--Virginia Woolf
"The most profound, wise and absorbing of English novels . . . and, above all, truthful and forgiving about human behaviour."
--Hermione Lee
"No Victorian novel approaches "Middlemarch" in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative...I doubt if any Victorian novelist has as much to teach the modern novelists as George Eliot...No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully."
--V. S. Pritchett
"Middlemarch is probably the greatest English novel."
--Julian Barnes
"It is possible to argue that Middlemarch is the greatest English novel."
--A. S. Byatt

"Certainly the greatest [English] novel."
--Martin Amis

From the Back Cover

An enduring triumph of moral and psychological insight, George Eliot's classic novel traces the lives of four residents of a fictional English town rocked by the changes of a modernizing world.

Dorothea Brooke married Edward Casaubon--a clergyman and scholar some years her senior--naively hoping their union would be a true meeting of the minds. Trapped in a lonely marriage to a tyrannical man, she finds companionship with Edward's cousin, but her overtures risk her spotless reputation and jeopardize her future.

Young doctor Tertius Lydgate comes to Middlemarch full of progressive ideas, eager to volunteer his skill at the local hospital. Through his connections there he meets the mayor's beautiful daughter, Rosamond Vincy, and marries her, only to face financial ruin at the hands of her materialism and overwhelming vanity.

Rosamond's brother, Fred, is destined for the Church to improve his family's class standing, but his childhood sweetheart, Mary Garth, refuses to marry him unless he pursues a more suitable career. Forced by fate into uncertain financial circumstances, Fred must question his choices and desires if he hopes to earn Mary's respect.

God-fearing and esteemed, Nicholas Bulstrode is a good man and trustworthy banker--or so it appears until an old enemy comes to town, intent on revealing Bulstrode's shady past dealings. Terrified of being exposed as a hypocrite, he takes matters into his own hands, each desperate act spiraling him further into disgrace and corruption.

A masterwork of fiction, Middlemarch traces these four lives in a plot that illuminates the social fabric of mid-nineteenth-century England. Looming above the landscape of Victorian literature, Eliot's beloved novel explores the perennial struggle between individual and society, integrity and temptation, and is as timely today as when it was first published.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062356143
• ISBN 13: 9780062356147
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 864