Middlemarch is perhaps the finest novel in the English language.

Set in a provincial town at the time of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, Eliot's novel is about the quest for both personal and political liberation and fulfilment, and centres upon two remarkable individuals, the ardently idealistic Dorothea Brooke and the philanthropically-motivated young doctor, Tertius Lydgate.

Around them is woven a rich tapestry of character, theme and incident...