800pages. in8. broché. middlemarch presents a vast panorama of life in a provincial midlands town. at the story's center stands the intellectual and idealistic dorothea brooke. but the very qualities that set dorothea apart from the materialistic, mean-spirited society around her also lead her into a disastrous marriage with a man she mistakes for her soul mate. in a parallel story, young doctor tertius lydgate, who is equally idealistic, falls in love with the pretty but superficial rosamund vincy, whom he marries to his ruin. eliot's characters are drawn from every social class, forming an extraordinarily rich and precisely detailed portrait of english provincial life in the 1830s. dorothea's and lydgate's struggles to retain their integrity in the midst of temptation and tragedy remind us of a world very much like our own. lynne sharon schwartz is the author of fourteen books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including the novels disturbances in the field, leaving brooklyn, and in the family way.