Middlemarch

By: George Eliot

Narrated by: Nadia May

Length: 31 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Named for the fictional community in which it is set, Middlemarch is George Eliot's rich and teeming portrait of provincial life in Victorian England. In it, a panoply of complicated characters attempt to carry out their destinies against the various social expectations that accompany their classes and genders.

At the center of the narrative is Dorothea Brooke, a thoughtful and idealistic young woman determined to make a difference with her life. Enamored of a man she believes is setting this example, she traps herself into a loveless marriage. Her parallel is Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor from the city whose passionate ambition to spread the new science of medicine is complicated by his love for the wrong woman.

Epic in scope and unsurpassed in its study of human nature, Middlemarch is one of the greatest works of world literature.

Listen to the classics: peruse our full list of titles by George Eliot.

(P)1994 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the few English novels written for grown-up people." (Virginia Woolf)
"One of the most profound, wise, and absorbing of English novels...and above all, truthful and forgiving about human behavior." (Hermione Lee)
"No Victorian novel approaches Middlemarch in its width of reference, its intellectual power, or the imperturbable spaciousness of its narrative....No writer has ever represented the ambiguities of moral choice so fully." (V.S. Pritchett)

Great narrator!

Nadia May sounds like Judi Dench, and she is amazing! I own a book and have read it, but this Audible version is a great way to re-read it.

Simply Smashing!

What a delightful surprise! I've never been a huge Austen fan, way too much women-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-get-married, and I assumed this was a huge honkin' Austen-ish book.
And I was right.
And I loved it.
I loved the delicate teasing and poking at the stuffy, silly mores of the time. I loved the rich, realistic characters. I simply adored the thoughtful, incredibly incisive ruminations on human nature, never delivered in a lecture style, always perfectly in context with the story. I loved the detailed descriptive passages, so out of fashion in today's writing world.
At first I was unsure if I'd enjoy the long passages of discussions, particularly between some of the more ignorant town worthies, but the more I listened, the more I fell under Eliot's spell. So deeply insightful but never jaded. She manages to retain a genuine affection for her characters, even the stupidest and nastiest ones, and it's rare and wonderful.
It helped that the narrator is simply PERFECT. A career crown for this wonderful voice.
It's a long read, and maybe not quite a full five. Today's editors would slice and dice it to half its length, and there are some passages that wouldn't suffer from a little paring. But I'm old and this old style of lush, ravishing writing is right up my alley. I'm just sorry it took me so long to get to this.
I guess I need to give Austen another go.

Hours of entertainment

This is a wonderful reading of this classic novel. It is well-paced, and the voice "fits" the text perfectly. The voices of the different characters are well distinguished, without excessive resouce to accents or speech mannerisms. I just loved listening to this, hour after hour after hour after hour... I never wanted it to finish. Oh, and it's a great novel, of course :-)

Charming

I really enjoyed the experience of listening to this classic. I was engaged in the story, cared about the characters and laughed out loud at some of George's descriptions of her protagonists. I had tried to read this book long ago and gave up. Listening to the story was such a different delightful experience.

I switched to this version

I enjoyed the reader and the book very much. It's a long book but a good story.

It is a very enjoyable protofeminist novel

The minute description of the characters of their interactions never gets boring, it is too lively for that. Here and there there are small pointed barbs to the stereotypes on women. Mercyfully the author does not moralize or judge her characters or their actions. It is a book that aged well and it is well worth reading or listening.

A classic well read

The performance of the readers brought the story to life for me. Over the hours one gets to know thecharacters and the period as if you were there. And human nature hasn't changed much since!

2 Chapters and your hooked

George Eliot was a brand new author for me. Having seen Middlemarch on DVD I partially knew the story line; well as much as a movie can tell such a rich story. However, the book is so much richer in plot, theory, beauty and action than any movie other than PBS could create. No surprise there! However, for some reason it did take me two Chapters before I became truly hooked. If you find yourself in the same situation, plug along and I believe that you will be very glad that you did.

The characters are very real: a lovely and lonely women with true purpose and hope for life; a mean spirited husband, which is good because you feel NO grief over his demise; several handsome young men with flaws but good hearts; a mix of beautiful young women; physicians, clergy and merchants with the good, bad and ugly mixed in. A life story; that is interwoven so uniquely that you will love reading it. Even the real scoundrels are worthy of the read.

The narrator made listening to it an extra plus. Even though I say this now, I will admit that the narrator's voice initially turned me off ... or it could have just been the opening lines. However, the narrator brilliantly brought each character alive; you could feel their essence. No real need for "He said," and "She said."

Finishing it was like losing friends. THAT is when I know I have read a good book; when I literally MISS the people, feel a loss, want more of them. So, I will reread in six months or so. However, she does not leave you dangling like some authors do. You do find out what happens years later. So, if you enjoy good plots, laughter, sadness, great richness of characters, along with a better understanding of the period time then THIS book is for you.

Middlemarch

It took a while to get into this because of all the characters involved. For a lot of the book, I only really cared about Dorothea's story. But it gained pace, and I really enjoyed the intelligence of Eliot's observations. I also liked the reading; although it sounded slightly raspy at first, the reader had such a talent for the many characters' voices that it really brought the story to life.

Absolutely Fantastic!

This is a fantastic audiobook - great voice, lovely to listen to, performs different chatacters faithfully. The only problem I had is that it misses out one of the shorter chapters (chapter 40).