George Eliot (1819-1880) was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, one of the leading English novelists of the 19th century. Her novels are celebrated for their realism and psychological insights. She used a male pseudonym to ensure her works were taken seriously in an era when female authors were usually associated with romantic novels.

Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch 'one of the few English books written for grown-up people'. It is not a romantic novel, though it is a very passionate one. It is anti-romantic. It does not lead from frustrated love to fulfilled love to climactic marriage; it begins with the mistaken marriage choices of its "heroine" and "hero" and shows the inexorable workings of their coming to terms with their folly. Both are idealists. Both are very intelligent.

Large paper edition, limited to 570 sets; 8vo, 25 vols (complete, including 'The Life'); numerous photogravure plates, the frontispieces printed in coloured and uncoloured states, text age-toned, else fine, contemporary crushed brown half morocco gilt, top edge gilt, an extremely handsome set.