'Miss Brooke' flowedquickly and easily for Eliot, and by Mashe had written 236pages of a novel which comprised both 'Middlemarch' and 'Miss Brooke.'Eliot joined nine and a half already written chapters of 'Middlemarch'with ten newly composed chapters of 'Miss Brooke' as she saw increasingconnections between the principle characters of each project. But in early November Eliot becameinspired to begin a new novel, 'Miss Brooke.' This second project involveda pious young woman whom we now know as Dorothea.

BetweenJuly and November of the next year, she had written only a few chaptersof 'Middlemarch' and had researched a bit about hospitals in order to gainbackground in Lydgate's profession. Eliot began to write this projected novel on July 19, 1869,but the narrative advanced slowly ( Notebook to Novel 3). She knew thatthe plot would revolve around a doctor, Lydgate, and would include theresidents of the town he came in contact with, but this original plan leftout all of the characters we now know from Tipton Grange, including Dorotheaand Casaubon. Haight's biographical work inform much of how we think about Eliotand this novel in particular.Įarly in 1869, Eliot decided thatshe would write her next novel about a provincial town called Middlemarch,an idea she had been considering vaguely for a long time. JeromeBeaty's textual criticism and GordonS. We can use her recordsof characters and plots as they occurred to her in order to learn moreabout the way in which Eliot wrote and published Middlemarch. She achieved both critical and commercial success with aninnovative type of serial publication which compelled her to write quicklyand challenged contemporary readers to wait two months between installments.Though in her journal and letters Eliot left fewer notes about Middlemarchthan most of her other works, we do have detailed notebooks of her plansfor this novel as well as her original manuscript. The publication of Middlemarchfirmly established George Eliot's place as one of the most popular authorsof her time. Gearon.html Middlemarch: Compositionand Publication History

Middlemarch 1871