Middlemarch (World Classics Unabridged)

One of the few English novels written for grown-up people. Virginia WoolfWhat do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory except that in a few instances this ''mortal has already put on immortality.'' George Eliot was one. The mysteries of human nature surpass the ''mysteries of redemption'' for the infinite we only suppose while we see the finite. Emily DickinsonMiddlemarch is probably the greatest English novel. Julian BarnesThey''ve [women] produced the greatest writer in the English language ever George Eliot and arguably the third greatest Jane Austen and certainly the greatest novel Middlemarch... Martin AmisBy the time the novel appeared to tremendous popular and critical acclaim in 1871-2 George Eliot was recognized as England''s finest living novelist. It was her ambition to create a world and portray a whole community--tradespeople middle classes country gentry--in the rising provincial town of Middlemarch circa 1830. Vast and crowded rich in narrative irony and suspense Middlemarch is richer still in character in its sense of how individual destinies are shaped by and shape the community and in the great art that enlarges the reader''s sympathy and imagination. It is truly as Virginia Woolf famously remarked ''one of the few English novels written for grown-up people''.