The Mill on the Floss, Volume 1

George Eliot

William Blackwood and Sons, 1860 - Fiction - 558 pages

Misunderstood Maggie Tulliver is torn. Her rebellious and passionate nature demands expression, while her provincial kin and community expect self-denial. Based closely on the author's own life, Maggie's story explores the conflicts of love and loyalty and the friction between desire and moral responsibility. Written in 1860, "The Mill on the Floss" was published to instant popularity. An accurate, evocative depiction of English rural life, this compelling narrative features a vivid and realistic cast, headed by one of 19th-century literature's most appealing characters. Required reading for most students, it ranks prominently among the great Victorian novels.

Contents

• CHAP PAGE I OUTSIDE DORLCOTE MILL: 1
• MR TULLIVER OF DORLCOTE MILL DECLARES HIS RESOLUTION ABOUT TOM: 6
• MR RILEY GIVES HIS ADVICE CONCERNING A SCHOOL FOR TOM: 17
• TOM IS EXPECTED: 42
• TOM COMES HOME: 52
• THE AUNTS AND UNCLES ARE COMING: 71
• ENTER THE AUNTS AND UNCLES: 93
• MR TULLIVER SHOWS HIS WEAKER SIDE: 136
• TO GARUM FIRS: 155
• MAGGIE BEHAVES WORSE THAN SHE EXPECTED: 181
• MAGGIE TRIES TO RUN AWAY FROM HER SHADOW: 193
• MR AND MRS GLEGG AT HOME: 215
• MR TULLIVER FURTHER ENTANGLES THE SKEIN OF LIFE: 239
• BOOK SECOND SCHOOLTIME: 245
• CHAP PAGE I TOMS FIRST HALF: 247
• THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS: 285
• THE NEW SCHOOLFELLOW: 299
• THE YOUNG IDEA: 311
• MAGGIES SECOND VISIT: 331
• A LOVE SCENE: 340
• THE GOLDEN GATES ARE PASSED: 349

Popular passages

Page 1 - A WIDE plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.

Page 56 - Oh dear ! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it hurt you?" " Hurt me ? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added — "I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know — that's what he got by wanting to leather rue; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.

Page 43 - I've got such a child, — they'll think I've done summat wicked." Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of hearing, making her way...

Page 54 - Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know what I've got in my pockets," nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery.

Page 79 - Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swallowed the last morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different point of view before and after one's own share of puff is swallowed. Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?" "I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have thought of it without, when you...

Page 55 - ... two new uns — one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the money ; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't. And here's hooks ; see here ! .... I say, won't we go and fish to-morrow down by Eound Pool ? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything — wont it be fun?

Page 56 - I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know — that's what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me." " 0 how brave you are, Tom ! I think you're like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him — wouldn't you, Tom ? " " How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing ? There's no lions, only in the shows.

Page 58 - I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you.' 'What for?' said Tom. 'I don't want your money, you silly thing. I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'ma boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes, because I shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're only a girl.

Page 7 - Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. He's none frightened at him." Mr Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman, in a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped caps were worn — they must be so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St Ogg's, and considered sweet things). " Well, Mr Tulliver, you know best: I've no objections. T it hadn't I better kill a couple o...

Page 261 - O Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being "the freshest modern" instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor, - that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is something else?

About the author

George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans on a Warwickshire farm in England, where she spent almost all of her early life. She received a modest local education and was particularly influenced by one of her teachers, an extremely religious woman whom the novelist would later use as a model for various characters. Eliot read extensively, and was particularly drawn to the romantic poets and German literature. In 1849, after the death of her father, she went to London and became assistant editor of the Westminster Review, a radical magazine. She soon began publishing sketches of country life in London magazines. At about his time Eliot began her lifelong relationship with George Henry Lewes. A married man, Lewes could not marry Eliot, but they lived together until Lewes's death. Eliot's sketches were well received, and soon after she followed with her first novel, Adam Bede (1859). She took the pen name "George Eliot" because she believed the public would take a male author more seriously. Like all of Eliot's best work, The Mill on the Floss (1860), is based in large part on her own life and her relationship with her brother. In it she begins to explore male-female relations and the way people's personalities determine their relationships with others. She returns to this theme in Silas Mariner (1861), in which she examines the changes brought about in life and personality of a miser through the love of a little girl. In 1863, Eliot published Romola. Set against the political intrigue of Florence, Italy, of the 1490's, the book chronicles the spiritual journey of a passionate young woman. Eliot's greatest achievement is almost certainly Middlemarch (1871). Here she paints her most detailed picture of English country life, and explores most deeply the frustrations of an intelligent woman with no outlet for her aspirations. This novel is now regarded as one of the major works of the Victorian era and one of the greatest works of fiction in English. Eliot's last work was Daniel Deronda. In that work, Daniel, the adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman, gradually becomes interested in Jewish culture and then discovers his own Jewish heritage. He eventually goes to live in Palestine. Because of the way in which she explored character and extended the range of subject matter to include simple country life, Eliot is now considered to be a major figure in the development of the novel. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery, North London, England, next to her common-law husband, George Henry Lewes.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Mill on the Floss, Volume 1; Volume 2 of Novels of George Eliot; The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot; Works, George Eliot
• Author: George Eliot
• Edition: large print
• Publisher: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860
• Original from: Oxford University
• Digitized: Jul 17, 2007
• ISBN: 0758315368, 9780758315366
• Length: 558 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Literary