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  • Published: 21 May 2020
  • ISBN: 9781529128215
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 4 hr 38 min
  • Narrators: Juliet Aubrey, Olivia Vinall, Charles Edwards, John Heffernan
  • RRP: $18.99

Middlemarch




George Eliot's beloved story of life, love and politics in an English town, as heard on BBC Radio 4 – plus bonus documentary In Our Time: Middlemarch

George Eliot's beloved story of life, love and politics in an English town

A jewel in the classic literature crown, Middlemarch was selected as one of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’. Its epic arc takes in politics, tragedy, romance and comedy, interweaving multiple narratives to make up a thrilling ensemble tale.

Set in the 1830s, this ‘study of provincial life’ introduces us to young, idealistic Dorothea Brooke, who accepts a proposal from scholarly Edward Casaubon, hoping to forge a loving partnership of intellectual equals. But on honeymoon in Rome, she swiftly becomes disillusioned. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, she finds solace in her friendship with Casaubon’s cousin, Will Ladislaw – only for her controlling husband to suspect her of betrayal, and set out to test her loyalty.

Meanwhile, mayor’s son Fred Vincy embarks on a steep economic learning curve, risking his burgeoning relationship with Mary Garth. When he contracts typhoid, he is treated by the town’s new medical man, Tertius Lydgate, who becomes drawn to Fred’s sister, Rosamond. Eager to win her hand, the doctor seeks help from the wealthy Mr Bulstrode – a decision he will come to regret...

As their stories shift, viewpoints twist together and lives collide and realign in a compelling ‘convergence of human lots’ that shows us an entire world in microcosm. Juliet Aubrey stars as the Narrator, George Eliot, with Olivia Vinall as Dorothea, Charles Edwards as Casaubon and John Heffernan as Dr Lydgate.

Also featured is a bonus edition of In Our Time, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot’s classic novel, described by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'.

Cast and credits
The Narrator, George Eliot – Juliet Aubrey
Dorothea – Olivia Vinall
Edward Casaubon – Charles Edwards
Dr Lydgate – John Heffernan
Will Ladislaw – Joseph Quinn
Arthur Brooke/Caleb Garth/Mr Trumball – Neil McCaul
Sir James Chettam – Hugh Skinner
Rev Farebrother – Miles Jupp
Nicholas Bulstrode – Adrian Scarborough
Celia – Lucy Reynolds
Peter Featherstone/Standish/John Raffles – Clive Hayward
Fred Vincy/Auction bidder – Will Kirk
Rosamond – Laura Christy
Mr Vincy/Mr Bambridge – Rick Warden
Mrs Cadwallader/Mrs Plymdale – Jessica Turner
Adolf Naumann/Barman – Adam Courting
Dr Hawley/Clerk – Greg Jones
Servant/Mrs Abel – Sinead MacInnes
Tantripp/Mary Garth – Scarlett Courtney
Mrs Garth – Alison Belbin
Letty Garth – Grace Doherty
Farmer/Mr Hopkins – Ikky Elyas
Tertius Lydgate – John Heffernan
Harriet Bulstrode – Rosie Cavaliero
Mrs Vincy/Farebrother’s aunt – Heather Craney

Written by George Eliot
Adapted by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole and Tracey Neale

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 23 November-7 December 2019

  • Published: 21 May 2020
  • ISBN: 9781529128215
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 4 hr 38 min
  • Narrators: Juliet Aubrey, Olivia Vinall, Charles Edwards, John Heffernan
  • RRP: $18.99

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Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

George Eliot

Mary Ann (Marian) Evans was born in 1819 in Warwickshire. She attended schools in Nuneaton and Coventry, coming under the influence of evangelical teachers and clergymen. In 1836 her mother died and Marian became her father's housekeeper, educating herself in her spare time. In 1841 she moved to Coventry, and met Charles and Caroline Bray, local progressive intellectuals. Through them she was commissioned to translate Strauss's Life of Jesus and met the radical publisher John Chapman, who, when he purchased the Westminster Review in 1851, made her his managing editor.

Having lost her Christian faith and thereby alienated her family, she moved to London and met Herbert Spencer (whom she nearly married, only he found her too 'morbidly intellectual') and the versatile man-of-letters George Henry Lewes. Lewes was separated from his wife, but with no possibility of divorce. In 1854 he and Marian decided to live together, and did so until Lewes's death in 1878. It was he who encouraged her to turn from philosophy and journalism to fiction, and during those years, under the name of George Eliot, she wrote Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, as well as numerous essays, articles and reviews.

George Eliot died in 1880, only a few months after marrying J. W. Cross, an old friend and admirer, who became her first biographer. She was buried beside Lewes at Highgate. George Eliot combined a formidable intelligence with imaginative sympathy and acute powers of observation, and became one of the greatest and most influential of English novelists. Her choice of material widened the horizons of the novel and her psychological insights radically influenced the novelist's approach to characterization. Middlemarch, considered by most to be her masterpiece, was said by Virginia Woolf to be 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people'.

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