The Mill on the Floss Illustrated

By: Eliot, George

Spanning a period of 10 to 15 years, the novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, siblings who grow up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The mill is situated at the junction of the River Floss and the more minor River Ripple, near the village of St Ogg's in Lincolnshire, England. Both the river and the village are fictional.[1]The novel begins in the late 1820s or early 1830s - several historical references place the events in the book after the Napoleonic Wars but before the Reform Act of 1832.[2] (In chapter 3, the character Mr Riley is described as an "auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago", placing the opening events of the novel in approximately 1829, thirty years before the novel's composition in 1859. In chapter 8, Mr Tulliver and Mr Deane discuss the Duke of Wellington and his "conduct in the Catholic Question", a conversation that could only take place after 1828, when Wellington became Prime Minister and supported a bill for Catholic Emancipation). The novel includes many autobiographical elements and reflects the disgrace that George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) experienced while in a lengthy relationship with a married man, George Henry Lewes.Bintry Watermill, which depicted Dorlcote Mill in the 1997 TV series.Maggie Tulliver is the protagonist and the story begins when she is 9 years old, 13 years into her parents' marriage. Her relationship with her older brother Tom, and her romantic relationships with Philip Wakem (a hunchbacked, sensitive and intellectual friend) and with Stephen Guest (a vivacious young socialite in St Ogg's and assumed fianc? of Maggie's cousin Lucy Deane) constitute the most significant narrative threads.Tom and Maggie have a close yet complex bond, which continues throughout the novel. Their relationship is coloured by Maggie's desire to recapture the unconditional love of her father before his death. Tom's pragmatic and reserved nature clashes with Maggie's idealism and fervor for intellectual gains and experience. Various family crises, including bankruptcy, Mr Tulliver's rancorous relationship with Philip Wakem's father, which results in the loss of the mill and Mr Tulliver's untimely death, intensify Tom's and Maggie's differences and highlight their love for each other. To help his father repay his debts, Tom leaves school to enter a life of the business. He eventually finds a measure of success, restoring the family's former estate. Maggie languishes in the impoverished Tulliver home, her intellectual aptitude wasted in her socially isolated state. She passes through a period of tough spirituality, during which she renounces the world, motivated by her reading of Thomas ? Kempis's The Imitation of Christ.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0931QRHLV
• ISBN13: 9798741413012
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 748 Pages
• Weight: 1.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"