The Mill on the Floss

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Pan Macmillan, May 2, 2019 - Fiction - 720 pages

With precise plotting underpinned by a wise understanding of human nature, George Eliot’s most autobiographical novel gives a wonderful evocation of rural life and the complicated relationship between siblings.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition of The Mill on the Floss features an introduction by Professor Kathryn Hughes.

Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom enjoy a rural childhood on the banks of the river Floss. But the approach of adulthood creates tension: intelligent and fiery Maggie tests the boundaries of nineteenth-century society in her search for love, while Tom embraces convention and accepts his father’s desire for him to become a businessman. Increasingly self-righteous, Tom disapproves of his sister’s suitors and when he discovers that she took a fateful boat trip with Stephen Guest, her cousin’s fiancé, he turns his back on her. Maggie is ostracized by her beloved brother and her own community, and only through tragic events are the siblings reunited . . .

 

Selected pages

Contents

Outside Dorlcote Mill
Mr Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill declares his resolution about Tom CHAPTER III Mr Riley gives his advice concerning a school for
Tom is expected
Tom comes home
The aunts and uncles are coming
Enter the aunts and uncles
Mr Tulliver shows his weaker side CHAPTER IX To Garum Firs
Maggie behaves worse than she expected
Aunt Glegg learns the breadth of Bobs thumb
A duet in paradise
First impressions
Confidential moments
Brother and sister
Showing that Tom had opened the oyster
Illustrating the laws of attraction
Philip reenters

Maggie tries to run away from her shadow
Mr and Mrs Glegg at home
Mr Tulliver further entangles the skein of life
SchoolTime
Toms first half
The Christmas holidays
The new schoolfellow
The young idea
Maggies second visit
What had happened at home
Mrs Tullivers teraphim or household gods
the present of a pocketknife
A variation of Protestantism unknown to Bossuet
The torn nest is pierced by the thorns
In the Red Deeps
Wakem in a new light
Charity in full dress
The spell seems broken
In the lane
A family party
Borne along by the tide
Waking
The Final Rescue
The return to the mill
Showing that old acquaintances are capable of surprising
Maggie and Lucy
The last conflict
Conclusion
Copyright

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About the author (2019)

George Eliot was born Mary Anne Evans in 1819. Her father was the land agent of Arbury Hall in Warwickshire, in the library of which Eliot embarked upon a brilliant self-education. She moved to London in 1850 and shone in its literary circles. It was, however, her novels of English rural life that brought her fame, starting with Adam Bede, published under her new pen-name in 1859. She went on to publish novels including The Mill on the Floss in 1860 and Middlemarch in 1871 as well as poetry and non-fiction. Queen Victoria was one of her most devoted readers. Eliot died in 1880.

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