Writing at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in Middlemarch (1871-2), the quintessential Victorian novel, a concept of life and society free of the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age. The text of this edition comes from the original Clarendon edition, the first critical edition of the novel. Felicia Bonaparte has provided a new Introduction for this updated edition, which roots the characters and action in the conceptual concerns that that inspired the novel.