Middlemarch »

A. S. Byatt won the Booker Prize for her novel Possession (1990), and her other books include Babel Tower (1996), Angels and Insects, and The Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998).

Middlemarch is a recognized masterpiece that explores the complex social world of 19th century England. It is concerned with the lives of several ordinary people, albeit ones with high social standing. The novel explores the very fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s, showing how various human passions—-heroism, egotism, love, and lust—-interrelate within this society.

1. The context of the novel;
2. The method of Middlemarch;
3. Middlemarch and the art of living well;
4. Gender and generation;
5. The afterlife of a masterpiece.