Middlemarch is a novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) published in 1871-2. The book is a study of provincial life.
The narrative concentrates on the marriage of Dorothea Brooke, a young wealthy Puritanical idealist, to the middle-aged Dr. Edward Casaubon, fruitlessly labouring on his Key to All Mythologies . He dies and after his death, affection develops between Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, her former husband's cousin. They eventually marry.
A second sub-story depicts the down-to-earth relationship between the local mayor's son Fred and Mary Garth, daughter of the honest estate manger, Caleb Garth.
A third narrative traces the career of the idealistic Dr Tertius Lydgate, devotee of scientific progress and the new medicine, and his marriage to Rosamund Vincy, Fred's sister, whose foolish social ambitions ruin his life. The affairs of Bulstrode, the rich hypocritical banker who harbours a secret, are also followed to their embarrassing end.
All these narratives involve many other minor characters: Dorothea's uncle, the humourous Mr Brooke, a characteristic early 19th-century landowner; Sir James Chettam, a local squire who marries Dorothea's sister, Celia; Mrs Cadwallader, the witty wife of the Rector; Mrs Bulstrode, a woman of dignity and integrity; and a billiard-playing vicar, Camden Farebrother.
There are also many more characters involved in a minor way – businessmen, auctioneers, clergymen, housewives, labourers, tenants, medical men, schoolmistresses, children and servants. Every other character is intertwined into the English social, religious and political life during the years 1829-1832, referred to as pre-Reform years. They all play an important part in George Eliot's purpose of presenting and examining the ebb and flow of a society through all the interplays that evolve in her characters.