Middlemarch

Middlemarch has been called one of the masterpieces of English fiction. Virginia Woolf described it as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." The 700-plus page novel refuses to conform to the traditional novel structure. Instead of the story revolving around one person, there are a large cast of characters in interwoven narratives. The novel is a collection of relationships that together represent provincial life in a tale that was both experimental and radical for its time. George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Anne Evans) explores the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy. The novel was started in 1869 and explores the issues of the day -- from the beginnings of the railways to the death of King George IV.