The Mill on the Floss

This powerful and moving 1860 novel is believed to be George Eliot’s most autobiographical novel. She was certainly referencing personal experience when she wrote the character of Maggie Tulliver.

The protagonist siblings, Tom and Maggie, are brought up in Lincolnshire, at Dorlcote Mill, on the banks of the imaginary River Floss. Maggie adores and worships her brother. As a young boy, he has adopted a chivalrous, manly, moral code, but also displays a reluctance to learn, and he fails dismal...