Support Us
Five Books
 
Search
MENUMENU
  • Nonfiction
        • Art
          • Architecture
          • Art History
          • Design & Illustration
          • Fashion & Style
          • Modern and Contemporary Art
          • Photography
        • Business Books
          • How to Invest
          • Leadership
          • Marketing
        • Economics
          • Behavioural Economics
          • Development Economics
          • Economic History
          • Finance
          • Financial Crisis
          • Globalization Books
          • World Economies
        • Environmental Books
          • Climate Change Books
          • Environmental Ethics
        • Food & Cooking
          • The Best Cookbooks
          • Food & History of Food
          • Wine & Drinks
        • Health & Lifestyle
          • Death & Dying
          • Education
          • Family & Relationships
          • Happiness
          • Sex & Sexuality
        • History Books
          • American History
          • Ancient History (up to 500)
          • Modern History (1800-1945)
          • History of Science
          • Historical Figures
          • Military History
        • Language
          • English Grammar & Usage
          • Books for Learning Languages
          • Linguistics
        • Law
        • Literary Nonfiction
          • Best Biographies
          • Essays
          • Memoir
          • Artists' Biographies
          • Travel
          • True Crime
        • Music & Drama
          • Classical Music & Opera
          • Film & Cinema
          • Music
          • Theatre
        • Nature
          • The Prehistoric World
          • The Earth
          • Plants, Trees & Flowers
        • Philosophy Books
          • Ancient Philosophy
          • Ethics & Moral Philosophy
          • Great Philosophers
          • Social & Political Philosophy
        • Politics & Society
          • War
          • Feminism
          • Foreign Policy & International Relations
          • Human Rights
          • Terrorism
        • Psychology
          • Mental Health
          • Neuroscience
          • Psychoanalysis
          • Psychology Research
          • Self Help
        • Religion
          • Best Atheist Books
          • Buddhism
          • Christian
          • Islamic
          • Jewish
          • Religious History Books
        • Science
          • Astronomy
          • Biology
          • Chemistry
          • Geoscience
          • Maths & Statistics
          • Popular Science
          • Physics Books
        • Sports, Games & Hobbies
          • Football (Soccer)
          • Gardening
          • Hobbies
          • Sport & Sporting Culture
        • Technology
          • Artificial Intelligence/AI Books
          • Computing
          • Digital Age
          • History of Technology
          • Internet
  • Fiction & Literature
        • Classic English Literature
        • American Literature
        • World Literature
        • Literary Criticism
        • Literary Figures
        • Classical Studies
        • Contemporary Fiction
          • NEW Fiction
        • Poetry
        • Memoir
        • Comics & Graphic Novels
        • Fairy Tales & Mythology
        • Historical Fiction
        • Horror
        • Humour
        • Crime Novels
        • Science Fiction
        • Short Stories
        • Romance
        • Thrillers (Books)
        • Mystery
        • Fantasy
  • World
        • Africa
          • Egypt
          • Ghana
          • Nigeria
          • Rwanda
          • South Africa
          • Zimbabwe
        • Americas
          • Latin America
            • Argentina
            • Brazil
            • Caribbean
            • Chile
            • Cuba
            • Mexico
          • United States
          • Canada
        • Arctic & Antarctica
        • Asia
          • Afghanistan
          • Bangladesh
          • Myanmar (Formerly Burma)
          • China
          • India
          • Japan
          • Kazakhstan
          • Korea
          • Pakistan
          • Sri Lanka
          • Singapore
          • Vietnam
        • Australia
        • Europe
          • Belgium
          • Britain
          • France
          • Germany
          • Greece
          • Ireland
          • Italy
          • Netherlands
          • Norway
          • Spain
          • Ukraine
        • Middle East
          • Iran
          • Iraq
          • Israel
          • Syria
          • Turkey
          • Yemen
        • Russia & FSU
          • Azerbaijan
          • Georgia
          • Russia
  • Kids
        • Kids Recommend Books for Kids
        • High School Teachers Recommendations
        • Novels & Novelists
        • Ages Baby-2
        • Ages 3-5
        • Ages 6-8
        • Ages 9-12
        • Books for Teens and Young Adults
        • Best Kids Books of 2022
        • Best Books for Teens of 2022
        • Best Audiobooks for Kids
        • Prizewinning Kids' Books
        • Popular Series Books for Kids
        • History
        • Economics
        • Environment
        • Family
        • Science
        • Mental Health
  • Best Books 2022
        • Audiobooks
        • Best Books for Teens of 2022
        • Best Kids' Books of 2022
        • Best Fiction of 2022
          • Historical Fiction
          • Romance
          • Science Fiction
          • Fantasy
          • Mystery
        • Best Nonfiction of 2022
          • History
          • Politics
          • Memoir
  • New Books
        • New Science Books
        • New Climate Books
        • New Psychology Books
        • New Philosophy Books
        • New Math Books
        • New Economics Books
        • New History Books
        • New Physics Books
        • New Memoirs
        • New Biography
        • New Fiction
        • New World Literature
        • New Historical Fiction
  • Audiobooks
    • Actors Read Great Books
    • Best Audiobooks for Kids
    • Books Narrated by Their Authors
    • Best Audiobook Thrillers
    • Best History Audiobooks
  • Book Awards
    • Nobel Literature Prize
    • Booker Prize
    • Baillie Gifford Prize
    • Royal Society (science)
    • Wolfson Prize (history)
    • Walter Scott Prize
    • Arthur C Clarke Prize
    • Pushkin House Prize
    • Audie Awards
  • Experts

Fiction » Classic English Literature

Middlemarch by George Eliot
Buy now Listen now Get the ebook

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

Middlemarch by George Eliot (real name: Mary Ann Evans), was first published in 1871. The novel is set in the fictitious English town of Middlemarch during 1829–1832, and follows several distinct, intersecting stories with a large cast of characters. It is one of Five Books’ most recommended books.

Recommendations from our site

“I think one does often turn to novelists to get a sense of other people’s lives. It was written in 1871, but it’s written about a period 40 or so years before, the period when Ada Lovelace flourished. It’s about an intelligent woman trapped by the expectations and the circumstances of the society she finds herself in.” Read more...

The best books on Ada Lovelace

Ursula Martin, Mathematician

“Middlemarch is staggeringly brilliant, but it’s a labour of love—it’ll take even the most diligent weeks to read…. It’s one thing to enjoy a book, and quite another to to cherish the time spent with a set of characters. I’m envious of anyone getting to know Dorothea Brooke, Tertius Lydgate, Mary Garth and Casaubon for the first time. If I could wipe my memory clean and go back and reread it fresh, I would.” Read more...

The Best Long Books To Read in Lockdown

Five Books

“I was in my early twenties and hungry for long, character-driven narratives. Dorothea Brooke was a wonder to me—Tolstoyan in her richness, truly good without a forced or irritating saintliness.” Read more...

Esi Edugyan on Books That Influenced Her

Esi Edugyan, Novelist

“Middlemarch is deeply ethical….It’s a great novel. Every time I re-read it I think, ‘Gee, I know this by heart. Am I going to have the full experience?’ And I always do: I always have the huge experience and find something else to admire in it.” Read more...

Best Philosophical Novels

Rebecca Goldstein, Philosopher

“It’s like several novels in one…. The idea is that, while you read successively, the events being narrated happen simultaneously. It makes you appreciate that there are so many lives interconnected and separated going on at the same time in this little world. It’s only a provincial town, but it’s an image of the whole world.” Read more...

The Best George Eliot Books

Philip Davis

“Many people will be familiar with this book. The main story concerns a young woman named Dorothea who is hungry for an intellectually and spiritually expansive life but not sure how to secure it. Given the time she lives in, the early nineteenth century, her first thought is to marry the man who can teach her the most, and this leads her to an unfortunate marriage with the dry pedant Mr. Casaubon. Casaubon turns out to be not only an impoverished thinker but a rigid and small-souled person. Sterile scholarship can be just another form of self-deception. George Eliot was not only a great novelist but a fine philosopher. You feel, underneath the workings of the plot, a superb philosophical mind thinking things out in an original and moving way. The fact that her writing is moving, working us over with the artistry of the novelist, is essential to her conception.” Read more...

Rebecca Goldstein on Reason and its Limitations

Rebecca Goldstein, Philosopher

“Eliot is very good at showing how people act against their best interests because of subtle social pressures that lead them a certain way.” Read more...

The best books on Philosophy and Everyday Living

Emrys Westacott, Philosopher

“Eliot was absolutely determined to paint a serious, detailed picture of provincial life.” Read more...

The Best Novels in English

Robert McCrum, Journalist

Mary Ann Evans, who went by the pen name George Eliot, was not only a great novelist but also a fine philosopher, as American philosopher Rebecca Goldstein put it in her interview with us on the best philosophical novels. Not surprisingly, Middlemarch has been recommended multiple times on Five Books, whether as one of the very best novels ever written in English, or as one of the most helpful books for insight into the ethical dilemmas and pressures of our daily lives. For these reasons, deputy editor Cal Flyn chose to publish it for the Five Books Essentials range, though it’s also long (800+ pages), so also quite a good one to read as an ebook for convenience purposes.

Best Ebooks: Five Books Expert Recommendations

Commentary

“It is not that her power diminishes, for, to our thinking, it is at its highest in the mature Middlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”

Virginia Woolf

Other books by George Eliot

Spinoza's Ethics, Translated by George Eliot by Baruch Spinoza, Clare Carlisle & George Eliot

Spinoza's Ethics, Translated by George Eliot
by Baruch Spinoza, Clare Carlisle & George Eliot

Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings by George Eliot

Selected Essays, Poems, and Other Writings
by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot

Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot

Scenes of Clerical Life
by George Eliot

Adam Bede by George Eliot

Adam Bede
by George Eliot

Our most recommended books

  • Great Expectations
    by Charles Dickens

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

    Jane Eyre
    by Charlotte Brontë

  • Wuthering Heights
    by Emily Brontë

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
    by William Shakespeare

  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

    Frankenstein (Book)
    by Mary Shelley

  • Antony and Cleopatra
    by William Shakespeare

Support Five Books

Five Books interviews are expensive to produce, please support us by donating a small amount.

About

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

This site has an archive of more than one thousand seven hundred interviews, or eight thousand book recommendations. We publish at least two new interviews per week.

Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases.

Newsletter Contact us Privacy Policy Terms of Service Mastodon Social

© Five Books 2023

Get our newsletter