WeBuzz
Reader discussion: Middlemarch
Public reader discussion about Middlemarch in the WeRead Catalog by George Eliot.
Primer for Middlemarch?
By cafe-clear
I just grabbed Middlemarch kind of on a whim, and I’m actually really liking it so far—the characters and all the drama have me hooked. I’d even say I love it. The one thing is, I’m American, so I’m missing a lot of the historical/political stuff that seems to be constantly referenced. Stuff like Whiggery, the Reform Act, church politics, etc. is going right over my head. Does anyone have recommendations for articles or essays I could read to catch up on the background so I can appreciate it more?
Middlemarch
By Bridge-Bowl2004
About 100 pages into Middlemarch and I think it’s good, just really dry. I’ve seen so many great reviews saying it’s on the level of Anna Karenina, so I’m wondering how much longer until I start feeling that too? Right now, if I didn’t need this for class, I probably wouldn’t be reading it at all.
If you have read Middlemarch, who are your favorite and least favorite characters?
By Bookish_Cocoa68
I’m about 90 pages away from finishing this one. In the first half, I found most of the people in it pretty likable, but now that I’m near the end a lot of them have kind of revealed their real motives and flaws. It really does feel like a very human story. I’m wondering what other people thought of the characters.
Favorites: Dorothy, Lydgate, Will Ladislaw, and the Garth family.
Not-so-great: Rosamund, Bulstrode, Mrs. Cadwaller, Raffles, Fred Vincy, Mr. Vincy, and Causabon.
I think a lot of them just can’t really look past themselves and their own standing in life. Especially Rosy, Causabon, and Bulstrode. Because of that, they end up making people around them suffer. It’s honestly hard to watch them ruin other people’s chances to grow just to help themselves. And then the other characters have to deal with the fallout from their fellow townspeople.
Spoiler free review of Middlemarch
By moonheather3306
Honestly, I felt uneasy pretty much right away. Seeing the younger characters mess up in ways that are really awful made me squirm, and it didn’t have that “war/action/adventure” distance some books can have. This felt way too close to my own world, like I could totally picture myself making the same kind of mistakes. I didn’t want to admit that, but there it was.
Still, I kept going, and I’m glad I did. It’s not like everything turns out great, though. Some people do find a sort of happiness, but nothing is really neat or perfect, and a couple just sort of do the best they can with the choices they already made. I kept thinking how different it feels from Jane Austen—Austen usually cuts her characters a bit more slack.
I also really liked the narrator. There’s this wry, funny edge to it, and sometimes the voice talks straight to you like it’s in on the joke. It’ll throw out opinions about what’s happening that you don’t usually get from an all-knowing storyteller, and yeah, sometimes it’s kind of sarcastic too, almost pushing you to feel bad for someone who probably doesn’t deserve it.
I guess knowing a little about George Eliot helps, too. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans, and she grew up in the West Midlands of England—basically the same area the book is set in (just a few years earlier than the characters). It almost makes sense that she could’ve been one of those kids, watching everything happen and taking it in quietly. And it’s strange how, unlike her female characters, she ended up moving to London and becoming a novelist and all that—plus she lived openly with a married man, which people definitely did not like.
I listened to it on audio, narrated by Maureen O’Brien, and she was great. I could almost believe George Eliot herself was telling me the story.
Names from books
By StillCamera4275
Lately I’ve been kinda wondering how cute it would be to give a kid a name inspired by a book, since I’m always reading. And that made me think—what book-based names do people actually love or hate for kids?
Like, I really like the name Gilbert (Anne of Green Gables), but I’m not sure I’d go for it on a real kid.
What names would you actually consider using, and why?
George Eliot's "Middlemarch" was a total revelation, easily one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
By small-lucky85
This quote is what really kicked everything off for me. I stumbled on it and just sat with it for a while—somehow it felt both true and kind of stunning, like it nailed what a lot of everyday interactions are really doing behind the scenes. I’d heard of George Eliot before, but after reading this, I got way more curious about her work. Suddenly it wasn’t just “oh cool, I should maybe read more,” it was more like “okay, this should be priority.”
I finished the book a couple weeks ago and I’m still kind of shocked at how much it matched what I hoped for. I keep getting drawn to these long, character-heavy books where there isn’t a ton of plot-driving stuff, but you still feel like you’re watching people and their everyday choices up close—like it’s almost poetry in how ordinary life works. East of Eden and Anna Karenina are kind of in that lane for me. Middlemarch does something similar, but it really commits to it. Eliot’s thoughts about people are smart, but also oddly personal, like she’s saying the quiet part out loud.
And I genuinely loved the characters. Lydgate was probably my favorite. I really got where he was coming from—he seems like he’s trying to do real good and help people—but then it all kind of blows up because he’s not exactly street smart. Dorothea hit that same nerve for me too, just in a different way. Still, they were all good to spend time with, from the kind of lazy/idle Fred to Bulstrode, who feels both pious and kind of hypocritical. Even the smaller roles weren’t just decoration—Farebrother the Vicar was such a sweet guy (seriously, what a homie), and Mr. Brooke was a total windbag in the best way.
I also felt like the book was talking directly to me. I’m usually pretty optimistic, so I kept wondering if Eliot’s view of things holds up when you actually deal with the real world. She does that really well through Dorothea and Lydgate, showing how sincerity and earnestness can run straight into naivety and small-town politics. I think that’s why that original quote grabbed me so hard: it makes me believe a good heart still matters, even when the world gets cynical. It also felt extra fitting that I finished it the night before graduation.
I wanted to underline basically the whole book—there’s a solid line on almost every page. Besides the one above, a bunch of others stuck with me too, especially stuff like the way she writes about how one life affects another, or how love and loss can feel like they’re happening inside a single moment. There are also those sharper ones that hit hard, like how despair can just be desperate hope that isn’t being fed, or how goodness can end up pulling back when it’s pushed around.
Honestly, I’m just grateful I got to read it. Letting Eliot show you the world through her eyes is such a beautiful journey.
2024 Discussion 1: Welcome and Intro
By Sleepy_Ticket
Hi everyone, welcome to Middlemarch—hope you’ve managed to grab your copy in whatever format works for you, and you’re ready to start reading for next week’s discussion (we’re doing the Prelude and Chapter 1).
A couple quick things I noticed: the subtitle is “A Study of Provincial Life,” and it looks like each book has a different subtitle too. Also, every chapter kicks off with an epigraph—sometimes from Eliot herself, but often from other places.
From what I can tell, it’s mostly centered on Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, with this big idealism driving how they handle what’s going on around them. But Eliot also seems to zoom out and look at the whole community—like how culture, science, politics, and relationships all shift things for everyone. I think the story is set about 40 years earlier, so maybe that’s part of how she can line up real events with what happens in this fictional town.
Also, I keep thinking about how unusual Eliot’s life was, and how that kind of feminist angle shows up in her writing, especially with the women here. The character relationships feel really sharp—there’s humor, but also a lot of insight. I’m excited to see what everyone thinks once we’re actually in the swing of the story and meet the people.
So—are you brand new to George Eliot, or have you read her before? Are you revisiting Middlemarch, or jumping in for the first time? And… are you ready for 800+ pages? Anything you still need before “Middlemarch 2024” starts?
Oh, and if it’s easier, there’s a new Google calendar link on the sidebar to track the weekly reading. Anything else we should know or do to get ready?
Middlemarch by George Elliot
By page-field
I think this is probably the hardest book I’ve tried to read. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I just can’t get past the first 50 pages. Has anyone else had that problem with books where you can’t seem to get started?
Is Middlemarch by George Elliot worth the read?
By shelfEnzyme
I’ve been considering picking up Middlemarch, but the book feels kind of huge and it makes me a bit nervous. Is it actually worth it, or should I not bother?
The enduring appeal of Middlemarch, 200 years after George Eliot's birth
By ella_miami21
This is one of those sagas that takes forever to really pull you in, but once it does, I just got totally hooked. I didn’t want it to stop. And the writing is gorgeous too.
Does Middlemarch get better?
By PathNarrow6296
I’ve been struggling with this book—I'm only about 15% in after 3 months. Dorothea just got married, and I can’t really get through more than a couple pages at a time. It’s honestly slowed down my reading a lot. I’ve managed Les Mis and Moby-Dick pretty fast, so I’m guessing I’m just having a rough patch right now.
2026 Middlemarch Schedule and an Open Invitation for Participation and Read Runner volunteers!
By GardenDeep
Welcome to Middlemarch. You picked a really good one to spend the year on, honestly. Virginia Woolf calling it “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people” still feels pretty spot on to me. This is my fourth time reading it too, and I love it more each time. Eliot’s voice is just so smart and funny and full of stuff, it kind of has everything I want in a novel.
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We’ll be meeting on Saturdays in 2026, and the discussion setup is pretty simple. If anything’s unclear, just ask!
Rules
Nothing fancy here.
Follow Reddit rules — pretty obvious.
Be respectful — just be decent to everyone here.
Watch for spoilers — if you’ve already read it or read ahead, please don’t ruin anything for people following along. On the weekly threads, stick to the chapters for that week and anything before them. If you want to post about later chapters, use the right flair and spoiler tags.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FAQ:
Who is George Eliot? That’s the pen name Mary Ann Evans used (22 November 1819-22 December 1880). Like Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens, she often writes about rural and small-town life, and she’s really good at realism and getting inside people’s heads. In Middlemarch, she also seems pretty funny and doesn’t show off her learning too much.
What else did she write? You may know Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, the Radical, Daniel Deronda and of course Middlemarch. She also wrote verse, novellas, short stories, essays, and translations.
What should I know about Middlemarch? It’s a long one, which makes it a good fit for a yearlong read. It first came out in eight parts in 1871 and 1872, so reading it slowly actually seems kind of right. The chapters are short enough that weekly reading shouldn’t be too much, but it deals with a lot: social change, politics, women’s roles, marriage, idealism, finding your place, religion, double standards, education, and more. It’s set earlier, from 1829-1832.
How is this going to work? There’ll be a new post every Saturday, starting with an intro on January 3 and the first reading on January 10. There’s plenty of time to get a copy, download it, or use Project Gutenberg or Librivox. If you’re unsure about editions, there are some suggestions. I’ll be using the Penguin edition again. If you’re doing audio, you might miss the chapter epigraphs, so you may want to check a free text version too. Usually we’ll do two short chapters a week. The novel is split into eight sections, and there’ll be catchup posts at the end of each one.
What have other writers said about it? Not just me or Virginia Woolf — lots of writers love this book. There are some reviews like “Revisiting the Genius of Middlemarch” on Lithub, “What Middlemarch Means to Me” by contemporary writers, and Emily Dickinson’s line: “What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory.”
So, who’s in? What’s the schedule? Say hello below and get your copy ready.
2026:
January 3, 2026 Welcome and Intro
January 10, 2026 Prelude + Chapter 1
January 17, 2026 Chapters 2 and 3
January 24, 2026 Chapters 4 and 5
January 31, 2026 Chapters 6 and 7
February 7, 2026 Chapters 8 and 9
February 14, 2026 Chapters 10 and 11
February 21, 2026 Chapter 12
February 28, 2026 Book 1 Summary/Catchup
March 7, 2026 Chapters 13 and 14
March 14, 2026 Chapters 15 and 16
March 21, 2026 Chapters 17 and 18
March 28, 2026 Chapters 19 and 20
April 4, 2026 Chapters 21 and 22
April 11, 2026 Book 2 Summary/Catchup
April 18, 2026 Chapters 23 and 24
April 25, 2026 Chapters 25 and 26
May 2, 2026 Chapters 27 and 28
May 9, 2026 Chapters 29 and 30
May 16, 2026 Chapters 31, 32 and 33
May 23, 2026 Book 3 Summary/Catchup
May 30, 2026 Chapters 34 and 35
June 6, 2026 Chapters 36 and 37
June 13, 2026 Chapters 38 and 39
June 20, 2026 Chapters 40, 41 and 42
June 27, 2026 Book 4 Summary/Catchup
July 4, 2026 Chapters 43 and 44
July 11, 2026 Chapter 45
July 18, 2026 Chapters 46 and 47
July 25, 2026 Chapters 48 and 49
August 1, 2026 Chapters 50 and 51
August 8, 2026 Chapters 52 and 53|
August 15, 2026 Book 5 Summary/Catchup
August 22, 2026 Chapters 54 and 55
August 29, 2026 Chapters 56 and 57
September 5, 2026 Chapters 58 and 59
September 12, 2026 Chapters 60, 61 and 62
September 19, 2026 Book 6 Summary/Catchup
September 26, 2026 Chapters 63 and 64
October 3, 2026 Chapters 65 and 66
October 10, 2026 Chapters 67 and 68
October 17, 2026 Chapters 69, 70 and 71
October 24, 2026 Book 7 Summary
October 31, 2026 Chapters 72 and 73
November 7, 2026 Chapters 74 and 75
November 14, 2026 Chapters 76 and 77
November 21, 2026 Chapters 78 and 79
November 28, 2026 Chapters 80 and 81
December 5, 2026 Chapters 82 and 83
December 12, 2026 Chapters 84 and 85
December 19, 2026 Chapter 86 and Finale
December 26, 2026 Book 8 Summary and Final Discussion
Typos in Middlemarch
By sleepy-mole1991
This isn’t really a real “literary discussion,” more just me being curious. I’m reading a 1994 Modern Library hardcover edition and it has a bunch of weird mistakes—like missing full stops, “heat” where it should be “head,” plus other punctuation/spelling stuff a proofreader definitely would’ve caught. I don’t remember seeing errors like this before in something that’s been so widely published and around for so long.
Has anyone read Eliot outside of Middlemarch?
By Garden
She’s definitely a fascinating writer, but I still find her kind of exhausting to read. I’m sure people have said this a ton already, but she feels much closer to Emerson than to most other Victorian novelists. The sentences are packed, like there’s tons of great material and smart observations in every bit, but after a while it starts to slow me down. I’m mainly talking about *Middlemarch*. I only got through the very start of *The Mill on the Floss*—and I remember noticing that Proust apparently loved it. Also, I don’t really hear many people arguing for *Daniel Deronda* (not that I’ve come across, except maybe Christopher Hitchens). I’m curious what people here think about her other books too.
Finished Middlemarch
By MintDuck
So I finally got through Middlemarch. I probably would’ve finished faster, except I kept having to pause halfway through to read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Overall I really loved it though. In that last stretch where everything’s shifting into Dorothea and Will, I felt a bit weird, like yeah I’m enjoying it, but also I’m constantly checking how many pages are left and thinking, “okay but what about Mary Garth?!”
And then, of course, it all comes together and we get the answer, and I basically just ended up in happy tears. I’m on the commuter train to Waterloo too, so a couple of people gave me funny looks, because apparently that’s what a middle-aged male lawyer does at the end of a book.
The final 400 pages of Middlemarch are genuinely thrilling.....
By listens_song1983
I loved the first 600 pages, no question. I think for a while I was just way more caught up in Eliot’s writing and the super personal, subjective experiences she gives each character than in what was actually going to happen. But once that Bulstrode thing finally comes out, and you see how clearly Eliot shows people talking themselves into things, how Lydgate basically gets crushed by speculation and small-town gossip, and how Dorothea’s kind of quiet-but-brave empathy ends up rippling through everyone around her… it totally turned into a page-turner for me.
Anna Karenina & Middlemarch
By BlackSeal37
I read both Anna K and Middlemarch this summer, and they felt weirdly close in what they’re really about. Like, to me the big theme in both is just trying to understand people—kind of compassion/empathy. I liked how the books deal with the fact that you can’t actually get inside someone else’s head, so misunderstandings happen all the time. And then you’ve got these really awesome omniscient narrators that let you see way more than the characters can, like you’re getting this deep look at what everyone’s thinking and doing. By the end, I just wanted to understand other people better. Also, I keep thinking about that Steinbeck line—knowing someone better doesn’t really lead to hate, it mostly leads to love.
The Guardian view on Middlemarch: the greatest novel in the English language
By night-roast85
The Guardian link here (no paywall) is pretty on the money. Honestly, for me Middlemarch kind of takes over after a while—you’re living in all these messy, gossipy little lives for ages, and somehow it still never gets dull. The whole mix of local elections and bigger national worries feels extra relevant right now, and I keep thinking about how it pushes the idea of being sympathetic and not just judging people.
Also, it’s got this “keeps working for every new batch of readers” quality, like it just renews itself. And yeah, it’s kind of a novel about what “being good” even looks like. There’s something about all those ordinary people doing the right thing in small ways that really gets you. You don’t really come away the same.
One weird add-on: since it’s set about 40 years before Eliot published it (1871–1872), it sort of counts as historical fiction too, right?
What books have a similar depth of psychological realism as Middlemarch? What books take their time creating depth in the way that Middlemarch and Gormenghast both (in their own unique ways) do?
By JohnReads
So far, Middlemarch has felt way more psychologically layered to me than Anna Karenina, and I’ve only gotten through about book 3 and paused. And Eliot just seems to pack that “big, universal stuff coming out of tiny gestures” feeling even harder than Tolstoy does. With AK, I keep getting the sense the characters are mostly there to play their part in whatever drama is happening, like they’re acting at the audience instead of really living in the world. Konstantin especially feels like he’s more or less there to push Tolstoy’s politics (maybe that’s just how I’m reading it). Middlemarch, on the other hand, feels like the world is way bigger than the page, and Eliot is kind of leading me through it and occasionally zooming in like with a magnifying glass. It doesn’t feel like “do one thing, then move on” characters—it feels more like they’re actually breathing, and the details are sometimes sharper than real life.
It also makes me realize I might just like books that aren’t super plot-driven, where they’ll slow down and really soak in details and let you sit with the picture they’re drawing. Whatever that picture is.
Like, Middlemarch (more historical vibe) and Gormenghast (weird surreal fantasy) both absolutely blew me away that way. Gormenghast doesn’t go deep into characters in the same way, but it takes forever to build out the visuals of the scenes, and it sticks in my head way more than most stuff. Gormenghast is the only book I can think of that left super vivid image memories for me long after finishing. And so far, Evans’ descriptions of Bulstrode’s guilt plus how Dorothea and Ladislaw end up—those are the only things that’ve even come close to bringing real tears to my eyes, and I’m 31/m if that helps at all.
I’ve tried a bunch of other stuff in between (some worked, some didn’t). On the fantasy end: I read Little, Big and Book of the New Sun, but neither fully hooked me—Little, Big was at least readable in bigger stretches, but once Crowley goes into the sex/romance stuff late-ish it didn’t feel like the payoff was coming. Book of the New Sun still hasn’t felt close enough to “real literature” for me, even if people call it that. Riddley Walker was fun and fast but didn’t leave much of a mark. On the “literary” side: I went Nabokov because I liked Lolita (it’s my #3). Pale Fire didn’t grab me enough to want to solve its little game, and Ada right after Lolita was just too much with the child sex themes for me to be in the mood for that. And I’m getting a bit turned off by that “family chronicle” type of thing—it feels like it can make it easier to stitch unrelated stories together to stretch the book out, instead of being one deeply immersive experience. Also I keep running into the trilingual pun stuff in places and it’s just going over my head again. Mason & Dixon was one I really enjoyed just for the style, but I drifted off around three quarters in because Pynchon is fun, yet I don’t think he’s reliably giving long-term payoff unless you’re fully sucked into it day-to-day. Blood Meridian… I got more than halfway and it started feeling downright tiresome for me. I didn’t find the characters fleshed out much besides the Judge, who basically feels like a college kid who read too much Nietzsche. Even the parts that are supposed to be shocking (like the dead babies hanging from trees) felt more boring than shocking to me—I kept imagining the travelers starving there and hoping it was animals they could still cook before realizing what it actually was. I did love The Waves, though it’s just barely not in my top tier; I’ve got a Woolf collection now, so that says something.
Anyway, I’m not saying I need Middlemarch-level psychology or Gormenghast-level visual stuff specifically. I just want that same kind of depth, if that makes sense. Like, I’d love to find more books that really take the time to sink deep into the moment the way these do.
What else gives you that? Proust feels like an obvious answer and I do want to get there—I’m just not ready to fully commit yet. Stoner feels like it might be next, though, just based on what people say.
George Eliot is best known for Middlemarch, but she also wrote an early work of science fiction
By SceneBundlet
I always thought she was mainly known for *The Mill on the Floss*.