Middlemarch, the most famous novel by Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot to be recognized as a female author, is rightly considered the pinnacle of 19th-century English novel writing. Its blend of realism, vivid character portrayal, psychological insight, scientific and philosophical interest, as well as historical and social awareness, is unmatched. The book paints a vivid picture of the quirks of the English countryside and its inhabitants. It is written with seemingly effortless grace in a style characterized by a restrained yet always present elegant irony, akin to that found in the works of Jane Austen, who perhaps mastered it most perfectly in English literature. For Virginia Woolf, it was the quintessential great book.