Middlemarch

In the provincial town of Middlemarch, the ardent and idealistic Dorothea Brooke marries the aging scholar Edward Casaubon, hoping to share in a great work of learning, only to find herself trapped in a cold and stifling marriage. Around her, the ambitious young doctor Tertius Lydgate, the charming Fred Vincy, the steadfast Mary Garth, and the banker Bulstrode, haunted by his past, each struggle with vocation, love, money, and reform.

Published in eight parts in 1871–72, Middlemarch is George Eliot’s masterpiece, a sweeping portrait of a community on the eve of the Reform Act, often called one of the greatest novels in the English language.