George Eliot's virtuoso-composed novel "Middlemarch" is a masterpiece of realistic literature. With immense narrative finesse, it creates a portrait of society and morals in the English provinces at the end of the 19th century that is both faithful and rich in detail. Eliot manages, in a playfully light and astonishingly effective way, to breathe life into her numerous main and secondary characters, making the contemporary struggle for self-determination and social participation vividly tangible. The material and stylistic diversity of Eliot's monumental novel, published in 1871/72, continues to fascinate to this day.