Middlemarch is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion,profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This penetratinganalysis of the life of an English provincial town is setduring the time of social unrest prior to the first ReformBill of 1832. It is told through the lives of DorotheaBrooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate and includes a host ofother paradigm characters who illurninate the conditionof English life in the mid-nineteenth century. Henrylames described Middlemarch as a 'treasure-house ofdetail' while Virginia Woolf famously endorsed GeorgeEliot's masterpiece as 'one of the few English novelswritten for grown-up people'.

Wordsworth Classics are inexpensive editions designed to appeal to the gtmeral reader and students．We commissioned teachers and specialists to write wide ranging，iargon-free introductions and tO provide notes titt at would assist the understanding of our readers rather than interpret tfle stories for them．In the same spirit，because the pleasures ofreading alj e inseparable from the surprises．secrets and revelations that all narratives contain，we strongly advise you tO enjoy this book before tlLtrning t0 the Introducdon．

INTRODUCTION 

Prelude 

BOOK 1 Miss Brooke 

BOOK 2 Old and Young

BOOK 3 Waiting for Death 

BOOK 4 Three Love Problems

BOOK 5 The Dead Hand   

BOOK 6 The Widow and the Wife

BOOK 7 Two Temptations   

BOOK 8 Sunset and Sunrise  

Finale       

OUTLINE OF REFORM-ERA EVENTS 

NOTES