Though overshadowed by the fame of Middlemarch, George Eliot’s novel The Mill On the Floss is one of her finest works. It is a reverie about the wonders of a childhood irretrievably lost, but also an account of the tragedies that ensue when people make the wrong choices in their moral development. Set in the flat fenlands of East Anglia, the novel is one of the first in English to have an ecological theme. Most of all, the book tells the story of the intense sibling relationship between Maggie and Tom, based on the author’s own bittersweet relationship with her brother. Join us to read what is still one of the 19th century’s most underrated major novels.

February 22: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss books one to three
March 22: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss books four to seven

Recommended print edition: the Oxford World’s Classics edition, edited by Juliette Atkinson
Recommended audiobook edition: the version read by Laura Paton