- Paperback: 864 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (5 Mar 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192834029
- ISBN-13: 978-0192834027
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 389,135 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Middlemarch (Oxford World's Classics)
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Review
"Excellent text--one of the best editions of any 19th century novel available in paper."--Alexander S. Gourlay, University of Nebraska
"Like the other World's Classics, this is a good text in a well-designed format, with adequate but unobtrusive editorial aids and introductions, biographical information, notes--at a fair price."--Robert D. Beckett, Southwest Missouri State University
"Like the other World's Classics, this is a good text in a well-designed format, with adequate but unobtrusive editorial aids and introductions, biographical information, notes--at a fair price."--Robert D. Beckett, Southwest Missouri State University
Product Description
Writing at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in Middlemarch (1871-2) the quintessential Victorian novel, a concept of life and society free from the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age. In a panoramic sweep of English life during thr years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Eliot explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but näive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar: Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician: the passionate artist Will Ladislaw: and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein. Felicia Bonaparte has provided a new Introduction for this updated edition, the text of which is taken from David Carroll's Clarendon Middlemarch (1986), the first critical edition.
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First Sentence
MISS BROOKE had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
MISS BROOKE had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book was firmly on my list of "must read" classics as it had been kindly reviewed in many places. And on reflection you can see why; it is a tapestry of English life revolving around the background of the Reform Act.
The novel is set in an English town and the cast of characters involves those that live there as well as others from afar that touch upon them. The writing is skillful and the relationships are realistically told with sometimes bleak messages about the longevity of love.
The biggest shame for me was one of the strenghts; the writing. This was one of the hardest books that I have had to read. Whilst it is rewarding, every page was at times a struggle as you found yourself constantly referencing the notes; sometimes three times a paragraph. This lead to a very disjointed reading experience and made reading it a chore at times.
But if you do stick with it, you find a tale that comes to a satisfying if somewhat sad conclusion.
The novel is set in an English town and the cast of characters involves those that live there as well as others from afar that touch upon them. The writing is skillful and the relationships are realistically told with sometimes bleak messages about the longevity of love.
The biggest shame for me was one of the strenghts; the writing. This was one of the hardest books that I have had to read. Whilst it is rewarding, every page was at times a struggle as you found yourself constantly referencing the notes; sometimes three times a paragraph. This lead to a very disjointed reading experience and made reading it a chore at times.
But if you do stick with it, you find a tale that comes to a satisfying if somewhat sad conclusion.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is, in lots of ways, the quintessential nineteenth century English novel: a panorama of lives which cross the class, gender and economic divide.
Eliot has a leisurely style but this allows her to get securely beneath the skins of even her minor characters and create men and women who we recognise, love, are irritated by, just as we are in real life.
At the heart of the book are Dorothea Brooke, a beautiful idealist who just wants to do good but can't quite work out how; and her opposite, Doctor Lydgate, who also loses his direction in life. Both are ambitious, albeit in different ways, and both are, to some extent, thwarted and diverted. It's especially interesting that Eliot doesn't make them into a couple, and marries them each off to other people.
There are many such parallels and similarities which play out in the book, moments of crisis, for example, where someone is tempted and has to make a decision which they then have to live with (Mary Garth, Bulstrode). But one of the thing I like about Eliot is that her books don't fall into predictable patterns: indeed, one of her themes is the endless potentiality of life which can turn on momentary decisions.
For all her realism, Eliot is in tight control of her story and inserts a narrative voice into the text which draws on the specific to make general points about life.
Eliot might not have the sparkle and wit of Austin, or the gothic intensity of the Brontes, but she's supremely intelligent and not afraid to show it.
Eliot has a leisurely style but this allows her to get securely beneath the skins of even her minor characters and create men and women who we recognise, love, are irritated by, just as we are in real life.
At the heart of the book are Dorothea Brooke, a beautiful idealist who just wants to do good but can't quite work out how; and her opposite, Doctor Lydgate, who also loses his direction in life. Both are ambitious, albeit in different ways, and both are, to some extent, thwarted and diverted. It's especially interesting that Eliot doesn't make them into a couple, and marries them each off to other people.
There are many such parallels and similarities which play out in the book, moments of crisis, for example, where someone is tempted and has to make a decision which they then have to live with (Mary Garth, Bulstrode). But one of the thing I like about Eliot is that her books don't fall into predictable patterns: indeed, one of her themes is the endless potentiality of life which can turn on momentary decisions.
For all her realism, Eliot is in tight control of her story and inserts a narrative voice into the text which draws on the specific to make general points about life.
Eliot might not have the sparkle and wit of Austin, or the gothic intensity of the Brontes, but she's supremely intelligent and not afraid to show it.
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read it many years ago and keep going back to my dog-eared Penguin Paperback to marvel at certain passages. It is huge and all-encompassing, and deals just as well with work as it does with love - a rare compliment indeed. Forget Dickens and Hardy and all those other writers of soap operas for children - this is truly "one of the few great novels written for grown-ups" (I quote Virginia Wolff from the back cover). (And for fans of Jane Austen, it's also a great soppy romantic page-turner with one of the most desirable female leads in literature)
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Inspiring and enlightening
I'm a huge fan of George Eliot, and this was the first of her works I read. I actually cried when I turned the last page. The story is truly several stories in one. Read more
Published 7 months ago by V.R. Christensen
If you're new to Eliot try a different book before you venture into...
Lydgate finds the petty medium of Middlemarch had been too strong for him so he moved to Rome. I know how he feels and yet I can't escape to Italian climes! Read more
Published 24 months ago by Allhug
So complete - novels like this aren't written anymore.
How can the 785 pages that comprise George Eliot's "Middlemarch" be concocted into a review that is short and still a mirror image of the novel's contents? Read more
Published on 4 July 2009 by Louise Amkaer
Middlemarch
George Eliot gets inside the mindset of inhabitants of a small town and extrapolates their most innemost feelings towards each other. Fascinating read.
Published on 28 Feb 2009 by Teresa Quayle
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