"The great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them."
The fictional town of Middlemarch is home to some colourful characters intelligent and wealthy Dorothea, trapped in a loveless marriage to an elderly clergyman; idealistic doctor Lydgate and his vain and shallow wife Rosamond; childhood sweethearts Mary and Fred; and Bulstrode, a wealthy banker with a shady past. The ups and downs of provincial life, with its quiet tragedies and small triumphs, uncover the hidden depths of those who on the surface seem very simple.
Better known by her pen name George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans adopted a male pseudonym to escape the expectation of women writers in the Victorian era to only produce romance fiction. Middlemarch, with its realistic and complex portrayal of a society on the brink of change (unwelcome though it may be), is widely recognized as Eliot's best work.
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