Volume 1 of 4. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. A novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. Themes include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Virginia Woolf described Middlemarch as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people". This book is a reproduction of the 1871 First Edition.