December 16, 1871: George Eliot Publishes "Middlemarch"

Mary Ann Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot

December 16, 1871: Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life, is published. The author's name is listed as George Eliot. But, like the French author Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil, a.k.a. George Sand, this author publicly named George was actually a woman.

Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in the West Midlands of England. Prior to Middlemarch, her novels included The Mill on the Floss in 1860 and Silas Marner in 1862. She lived until December 22, 1880.

Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, from 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. The leading character is Dorothea Brooke, who is 19 years old at the beginning of the novel, and marries a minister more than twice her age. His cousin falls in love with her, but she does not return his feelings. The minister falls ill, and rewrites his will so that she forfeits her inheritance if she marries the cousin. She chooses the cousin and happiness over the fortune.

Issues in the book include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Despite some elements of humor, Middlemarch approaches significant historical events in realistic fashion: The Reform Act 1832, the beginning of train travel, and the death of King George IV and his replacement by his brother, King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change.

Middlemarch was described by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," and by both Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

The BBC adapted it as a miniseries in 1968, starring Michele Dotrice as Dorothea; and again in 1994, with Juliet Aubrey. It has never been made into a feature film, but in 2015, Allen Shearer (not to be confused with legendary English soccer player Alan Shearer) and Claudia Stevens adapted it into the opera Middlemarch in Spring.

*

December 16, 1871 was a Friday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball was out of season, no college football games were played in that early year in the sport's history, and neither basketball nor hockey had yet been invented.