Book Description 　　The Wordsworth Classics covers a huge list of beloved works of literature in English and translations. This growing series is rigorously updated, with scholarly introductions and notes added to new titles. 　　 　　This novel is a complex tale of idealism, disillusion, profligacy, loyalty and frustrated love. This analysis of the life of a provincial English town during the time of social unrest prior to the Reform Bill of 1832 is told through the lives of Dorothea Brooke and Dr Tertius Lydgate. 　　 　　 From Library Journal 　　Though not out of print, this popular title is being added to the venerable "Modern Library" line to coincide with a PBS Masterpiece Theatre miniseries. Along with the full text, this edition includes an introduction by A.S. Byatt. All that for $15 makes this a bargain. 　　 　　 From AudioFile 　　Dorothea Brooke, a young woman of impeccable character, marries the embittered Mr. Casaubon, who almost immediately dies. Eliot takes the reader through a labyrinth of nineteenth-century morals and conventions as Dorothea searches for fulfillment and happiness. Walter's delicious, upper-crust English accent and understated English inflections immerse the listener in a little-known world of hedgerows and manners. This reading would have been a complete success had the narrator only taken more care with the timing surrounding omitted sections of the abridged text. She races ahead without pause, often confounding the listener, who finds the action has suddenly moved to the next county--or country--without warning. A worthy, though flawed, presentation. R.B.F. 　　 　　 From 500 Great Books by Women ; review by Erica Bauermeister 　　Dorothea Brooke can find no acceptable outlet for her talents or energy and few who share her ideals. As an upper middle-class woman in Victorian England she can't learn Greek or Latin simply for herself; she certainly can't become an architect or have a career; and thus, Dorothea finds herself "Saint Theresa of nothing." Believing she will be happy and fulfilled as "the lampholder" for his great scholarly work, she marries the self-centered intellectual Casaubon, twenty-seven years her senior. Dorothea is not the only character caught by the expectations of British society in this huge, sprawling book. Middlemarch stands above its large and varied fictional community, picking up and examining characters like a jeweler observing stones. There is Lydgate, a struggling young doctor in love with the beautiful but unsuitable Rosamond Vincy; Rosamond's gambling brother Fred and his love, the plain-speaking Mary Garth; Will Ladislaw, Casaubon's attractive cousin, and the ever-curious Mrs. Cadwallader. The characters mingle and interact, bowing and turning in an intricate dance of social expectations and desires. Through them George Eliot creates a full, textured picture of life in provincial nineteenth-century England. 　　 　　 About Author 　　George Eliot was the nom de plume of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). She began her literary career as a translator and later was editor of the Westminster Review. In 1857 she published Scenes of Clerical Life, the first of eight novels she would publish under the name George Eliot. 　　 　　 Book Dimension : 　　length: (cm)19.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)12.6