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