Culture

1book140's April Read: Middlemarch

Follow along as our Twitter book club reads George Eliot's 1874 "study of provincial life."

By J. Nathan Matias
Penguin Classics
Middlemarch, by George Eliot, has been called "the greatest English novel," labeled "the death knell for a book club," and, according to Virginia Woolf, who loved it, "one of the few novels written for grown-up people." In a close vote with Charlotte Brontë's Villette, bookies have chosen Middlemarch for our April book.

We also have Middlemarch to thank for the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starting Colin Firth and and Jennifer Ehle, according to this New York Times review of Middlemarch, the 1994 BBC miniseries. The miniseries was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic, inspiring a string of television series based on 19th-century novels.

Rohan Maitzen, an English professor at Dalhousie University, has published an excellent guide for book clubs who read Middlemarch. Here are her tips for success.
  • Don't rush it—the novel was published in serial form over two years. Following her advice, we're going to focus on the first two books this month.
  • Mark it up or use flag bookmarks to remember key moments.
  • Make a character list. Middlemarch tells the story of an entire community; a dramatis personae can help you remember who's who. I especially love this personal chart by Joyce Nickel:
Courtesy of Joyce Nickel

Middlemarch is also the organizing subject of My Life in Middlemarch, a new bibliomemoir by Rebecca Mead which Joyce Carol Oates has called "a poignant testimony to the abiding power of fiction." Later this month, we'll host a Twitter Q&A with Rebecca about her book and her love of Eliot's novel. You can listen to her interview with Leonard Lopate on WNYC here:

Join the conversation at #1book140
Share favorite quotes, take selfies with your dramatis personae, ask questions, and read along at @1book140, our Twitter book club. We have just finished Open City by Teju Cole. Our hashtag #1book140 is a great place to share about what else you're reading.

To join the conversation on Middlemarch, follow us at @1book140 and tweet to join the conversation so we know that you're reading along. To avoid spoilers, we spread the conversation across one hashtag per week. Click on each hashtag to see the conversation at that point in the book.
  • Week One: Chapters 1-5, using #1b140_1 as a hashtag for your tweets
  • Week Two: Chapters 6-9, using #1b140_2
  • Week Three: Chapters 10-14, using #1b140_3
  • Week Four: Chapters 15-20, using #1b140_4