Editing Middlemarch (section)

==Critical reception==
===Contemporary reviews===
''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|The Examiner]]'', ''[[The Spectator]]'' and ''[[Athenaeum (British magazine)|Athenaeum]]'' reviewed each of the eight books that comprise ''Middlemarch'' as they were published from December 1871 to December 1872;{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=13}} such reviews speculated on the eventual direction of the plot and responded accordingly.{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=14}} Contemporary response to the novel was mixed. Writing as it was being published, the ''Spectator'' reviewer R. H. Hutton criticised it for what he saw as its melancholic quality.<ref>H. R. Hutton, "Review of ''Middlemarch''", ''Spectator'', 1 June 1872.</ref> ''Athenaeum'', reviewing it after "serialisation", found the work overwrought and thought it would have benefited from hastier composition.{{efn |The novel was completed before being published in eight instalments (volumes).}}<ref>''Athenaeum'', 7 December 1872.</ref> ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'' reviewer W. L. Collins saw as the work's most forceful impression its ability to make readers sympathise with the characters.<ref>W. L. Collins, ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'', December 1872.</ref> Edith Simcox of ''Academy'' offered high praises, hailing it as a landmark in fiction owing to the originality of its form; she rated it first amongst Eliot's œuvre, which meant it "has scarcely a superior and very few equals in the whole wide range of English fiction".<ref name=simcox>{{Cite news |last1=Simcox |first1=Edith |title=Review of ''Middlemarch'' |work=Academy |date=January 1873}} (Reprinted from Swinden, Patrick, ed. [1972], pp. 41–47).</ref>

{{Quote box |width=30em |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |align=left|quote="What do I think of 'Middlemarch'?" What do I think of glory – except that in a few instances this "mortal has already put on immortality." George Eliot was one. The mysteries of human nature surpass the "mysteries of redemption," for the infinite we only suppose, while we see the finite. |salign=left |source=Emily Dickinson, Letter to her cousins Louise and Fannie Norcross<ref>Robert N. Linscott, 1959. ''Selected Poems and Letters of Emily Dickinson'', Anchor Books, Random House, New York, p. 242.</ref>}}

Henry James presented a mixed opinion, ''Middlemarch'', according to him, was "at once one of the strongest and one of the weakest of English novels&nbsp;... ''Middlemarch'' is a treasure-house of details, but it is an indifferent whole". Among the details, his greatest criticism ("the only eminent failure in the book") was of the character of Ladislaw, who he felt was an insubstantial hero-figure as against Lydgate. The scenes between Lydgate and Rosamond he especially praised for their psychological depth – he doubted whether there were any scenes "more powerfully real... [or] intelligent" in all English fiction.{{sfnp |James |1873}}
[[Thérèse Bentzon]], for the ''[[Revue des deux Mondes]]'', was critical of ''Middlemarch''. Although finding merit in certain scenes and qualities, she faulted its structure as "made up of a succession of unconnected chapters, following each other at random... The final effect is one of an incoherence which nothing can justify." In her view, Eliot's prioritisation of "observation rather than imagination... inexorable analysis rather than sensibility, passion or fantasy" means that she should not be held amongst the first ranks of novelists.<ref name=bentzon>{{Cite news |last1=Bentzon |first1=TH |title=Le Roman de la vie de province en angleterre |work=Revue des deux Mondes |issue=103 |date=February 1873}} (Reprinted from Swinden, Patrick, ed. [1972], pp. 56–60).</ref> The German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], who read ''Middlemarch'' in a translation owned by his mother and sister, derided the novel for construing suffering as a means of expiating the debt of sin, which he found characteristic of "little moralistic females à la Eliot".<ref>Thomas J. Joudrey. "The Defects of Perfectionism: Nietzsche, Eliot, and the Irrevocability of Wrong." ''Philological Quarterly'' 96.1 (2017), pp. 77–104.</ref>

Despite the divided contemporary response, ''Middlemarch'' gained immediate admirers: in 1873, the poet [[Emily Dickinson]] expressed high praise for the novel, exclaiming in a letter to a friend: "What do I think of ''Middlemarch''? What do I think of glory."<ref>Megan Armknecht. "The Weight of 'Glory': Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, and Women's Issues in ''Middlemarch''." ''Criterion'' 9.1 (2016): 35–46.</ref><ref>Eleanor Elson Heginbotham. "'What do I think of glory –': Dickinson's Eliot and ''Middlemarch''." ''Emily Dickinson Journal'' 21.2 (2012): 20–36.</ref><ref name=litencyc>{{Cite web |last1=Uglow |first1=Nathan |title=George Eliot: Middlemarch |url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3605 |website=The Literary Encyclopedia |publisher=The Literary Dictionary Company |access-date=5 April 2015 |archive-date=10 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410155657/http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3605 |url-status=live }}{{subscription required}}</ref>
{{Quote box |width=30em |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |align=right  |quote=The immediate success of ''Middlemarch'' may have been proportioned rather to the author's reputation than to its intrinsic merits. [The novel]&nbsp;... seems to fall short of the great masterpieces which imply a closer contact with the world of realities and less preoccupation with certain speculative doctrines. |salign=right |source=—[[Leslie Stephen]], ''George Eliot'' (1902)<ref name="stephen1902">{{Cite book |last1=Stephen |first1=Leslie |author-link1=Leslie Stephen |title=George Eliot |date=1902 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |pages=172–184 |isbn=9781108019620 |edition=2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7F4RV8BUh1cC |access-date=25 September 2020 |archive-date=15 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115134618/https://books.google.com/books?id=7F4RV8BUh1cC |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

In separate centuries, [[Florence Nightingale]] and [[Kate Millett]] remarked on the eventual subordination of Dorothea's own dreams to those of her admirer, Ladislaw.<ref>[[Kate Millett|Millet]] (1972), ''Sexual Politics p.139''; Nightingale quoted in ''The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot'', "George Eliot and Gender", Kate Flint, 2001.</ref> Indeed, the ending acknowledges this and mentions how unfavourable social conditions prevented her from fulfilling her potential.

===Later responses===
In the first half of the 20th century, ''Middlemarch'' continued to provoke contrasting responses; while Leslie Stephen dismissed the novel in 1902, his daughter [[Virginia Woolf]] described it in 1919 as "the magnificent book that, which with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."{{sfnp |Woolf|1925|p=237}} However, Woolf was "virtually unique" among the [[Literary modernism|modernists]] in her unstinting praise for ''Middlemarch'',{{sfnp |Chase |1991 |p=92}} and the novel also remained overlooked by the reading public of the time.{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=22}}

[[F. R. Leavis]]'s ''[[The Great Tradition]]'' (1948) is credited with having "rediscovered" the novel:{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=22}}
<blockquote>The necessary part of great intellectual powers in such a success as ''Middlemarch'' is obvious&nbsp;... the sheer informedness about society, its mechanisms, the ways in which people of different classes live&nbsp;... a novelist whose genius manifests itself in a profound analysis of the individual.{{sfnp |Leavis|1950|p=61}}</blockquote>
Leavis' appraisal of it has been hailed as the beginning of a critical consensus that still exists towards the novel, in which it is recognised not only as Eliot's finest work, but as one of the greatest novels in English. [[V. S. Pritchett]], in ''The Living Novel'', two years earlier, in 1946 had written that "No Victorian novel approaches ''Middlemarch'' in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative&nbsp;... I doubt if any Victorian novelist has as much to teach the modern novelists as George Eliot&nbsp;... No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully".<ref>Quoted in Karen Chase, ''George Eliot, Middlemarch'', p. 94.</ref>

In the 21st century, the novel is still held in high regard. The novelists [[Martin Amis]] and [[Julian Barnes]] have both called it probably the greatest novel in the English language,{{efn |{{Cite news |last1=Long |first1=Camilla |title=Martin Amis and the sex war |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=24 January 2010 |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6996980.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 |quote=They've produced the greatest writer in the English language ever, George Eliot, and arguably the third greatest, Jane Austen, and certainly the greatest novel, Middlemarch&nbsp;...}}{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} {{subscription required}}}}<ref>"Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction" Interviewed by Shusha Guppy'' The Paris Review'', No. 165: [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/562/the-art-of-fiction-no-165-julian-barnes |accessdate=12 April 2015|] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151126043542/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/562/the-art-of-fiction-no-165-julian-barnes |date=26 November 2015 }}</ref> and today ''Middlemarch'' is frequently included in university courses. In 2013, the then British Education Secretary [[Michael Gove]] referred to ''Middlemarch'' in a speech, suggesting its superiority to [[Stephenie Meyer]]'s vampire novel ''[[Twilight (Meyer novel)|Twilight]]''.<ref name=gove>{{Cite web |title=What does it mean to be an educated person? |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-educated-person |website=gov.uk |date=9 May 2013 |publisher=Department for Education and The Rt Hon Michael Gove |access-date=1 April 2015 |format=Speech |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402154719/https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/what-does-it-mean-to-be-an-educated-person |url-status=live }}</ref> Gove's comments led to debate on teaching ''Middlemarch'' in Britain,{{efn |{{Cite web |last1=Jones |first1=Nelson |title=In a political arena largely devoid of obvious talent Michael Gove is a star turn |url=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/political-arena-largely-devoid-obvious-talent-michael-gove-star-turn |website=newstatesman.com |date=10 May 2013 |publisher=[[New Statesman]] |access-date=1 April 2015 |quote=Middlemarch, by contrast [to ''Twilight''], though 150 years older, features a free-thinking, active and educated heroine. If we want our daughters to aspire, which provides the better role model?}}}} including the question of when novels like ''Middlemarch'' should be read,{{efn |{{Cite news |last1=Berry |first1=Jill |title=Michael Gove is wrong: why shouldn't students read Twilight?|url=https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/may/15/twilight-middlemarch-michael-gove |access-date=1 April 2015 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=15 May 2013 |quote=I think she would be better starting with ''Silas Marner'' or ''The Mill on the Floss'' and leaving ''Middlemarch'' until she had greater life experience and emotional maturity.}}}} and the role of [[Literary canon|canonical]] texts in teaching.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Singh |first1=Sandhya P. |title='Twilight or Middlemarch?' A Teacher's Refusal to Choose| journal=Changing English |date=2015 |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=3–13 |doi=10.1080/1358684X.2014.992211|s2cid=143445215 }} {{subscription required}}</ref> The novel has remained a favourite with readers and scores high in reader rankings: in 2003 it was No. 27 in the BBC's [[The Big Read]],<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml "BBC – The Big Read"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031065136/http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml |date=31 October 2012 }}. BBC. April 2003, Retrieved 28 October 2012</ref> and in 2007 it was No. 10 in "The 10 Greatest Books of All Time", based on a ballot of 125 selected writers.<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1578073,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070117063318/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1578073,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 January 2007 |magazine=Time |title=The 10 Greatest Books of All Time |date=15 January 2007 |access-date=12 May 2010 |first=Lev |last=Grossman}}</ref> In 2015, in a [[BBC]] Culture poll of book critics outside the UK, the novel was ranked at number one in "The 100 greatest British novels".<ref>{{Cite magazine |url=http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels |magazine=Time |title=The 100 greatest British novels |date=7 December 2015 |access-date=8 December 2015 |first=Jane |last=Ciabattari |archive-date=8 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208170427/http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels |url-status=live }}</ref>

On 5 November 2019, the ''[[BBC News]]'' reported that ''Middlemarch'' is on the [[BBC list of 100 'most inspiring' novels|BBC list of 100 "most inspiring" novels]].<ref name=Bbc2019-11-05/>