This book was on a booklist of the 100 best books written, and once read, you will have to agree. It will take a while to get into it because theres a great deal of expository writing at the beginning, but stick with it and youll be introduced to some fascinating characters in the town of Middlemarch. Dorothea Brooke is a young woman about to take a much older husband, determined to find purpose in her life by assisting him with his lifes work, a book which is to a definitive guide to all the mythologies of the world. When she begins to suspect her husbands work is little more than empty piffle, how will she find her way? Mr. Lydgate is a hotshot young physician determined to do great works from the small town of Middlemarch. Thwarted by small town suspicion and politics, and increasingly saddled by debt incurred by a pretty young wife, how will he cope as his lifes dream slips away? Fred Vincy is the son of a town merchant determined to see him made a gentleman. Hes paid for Fred to recieve a gentlemans education at Oxford with the intention that Fred will join the Church. Fred knows the Church isnt for him, but isnt sure what else to do, nor how to tell his father his education was for naught. These are just three of a huge cast of characters, all of them fascinating in their own way as their lives intersect. The book feels more like a documentary than a novel, and you grow to feel as if the characters could be your own friends and neighbors. Highly recommended, I know this is going to be one of your favorite books.