Middlemarch by George Eliot

 

This classic, set in the early 1800's, gives the reader a look at English society among the elite in a small town.  Dorothea and Celia Brooks are wards of a wealthy uncle.  Celia marries a baronet who lives in Middlemarch while Dorothea, for reasons no one can fathom, marries a scholar/vicar who is old enough to be her father.  On her honeymoon, they tour Europe and in Rome, she meets Will, who is a cousin to her husband and a young, virile man who falls in love with her.

Other characters include a doctor, Tertius Lydgate, who has come to the town to try to modernize the practice of medicine.  A local family, the Vincys, have two characters who are featured.  Rosamond marries Dr. Lydgate while Fred, an impetuous young man who went to university but doesn't want to be a churchman, becomes a surveyor and manager who works outside.  There are other businessmen and local families who form the society of Middlemarch.

The novel was serialized like much of the work of Charles Dickens and has much the same feel.  It outlines the strictness of society and how easy it was to scandalize it.  A man with no money had no place and was vilified if he tried to mix with society.  Medicine and business as practiced at the time are discussed.  There is a big secret one man is keeping and possibly a murder.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.