Middlemarch

Introduction by Robbie

Middlemarch was the third book in the reading sequence, begun in June 2022 after Little Dorrit. George Eliot's great novel of provincial life — often called the finest novel in the English language — brought a different voice and a different kind of ambition to the daily readings.

Structured across eight books and eighty-six chapters, the reading ran from June through November 2022. After Tolstoy and Dickens, Eliot's careful, perceptive prose offered something new: a novel that watches its characters with extraordinary patience and intelligence.

By this point, reading aloud each day had become a settled rhythm. Middlemarch, with its interwoven stories of Dorothea, Lydgate, and the community of a small English town, rewarded that steadiness beautifully.