As well as making allusions to the death of George IV, outbreaks of cholera and the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832, its characters discuss the coming of the railway and the impact of industrialisation on a settled Midland English world. The action takes place some 40 years before the moment of composition. Dr Lydgate is especially emblematic of Middlemarch: dying young, a bitter and disappointed man who knew he had married the wrong woman and could do nothing about it. And others still realise their mistakes but are trapped by a wrong decision and never escape. Others refuse or are incapable of learning, and spend their lives resenting their situation, and blaming others. Some learn the lessons and achieve a temporary happiness. Indeed, Middlemarch looms above the mid-Victorian literary landscape like a cathedral of words in whose shadowy vastness its readers can find every kind of addictive discomfort, a sequence of raw truths: the loneliness of the disappointed failure, Dr Lydgate the frustrations of his discontented wife the humiliation of a good woman, Dorothea the corrosive bitterness of Casaubon, and so on.įew of Eliot's characters achieve what they really want, and all have to learn to compromise. Subtitled 'a study of provincial life', the novel has a didactic realism that's a world away from Vanity Fair or Great Expectations. Global interest in the films was fantastic for the whole country - and was marketing and promotion a local marketing budget could not buy, he said.George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch, appeared after the deaths of Thackeray (1863) and Dickens (1870).

Therefore, in the meantime, the very best we can do is highlight and promote the broader South Island to travellers.' 'It is very difficult to understand or second guess what the impact will be until we see the movies. Initially, it was likely Dunedin would host visiting media and hopefully benefit from information produced by Tourism NZ on national journeys, which would include Otago. Tourism Dunedin chief executive Hamish Saxton said it would initially take advantage of Tourism New Zealand's investment in promoting New Zealand as Middle-earth, and the predicted increase in visitor numbers to New Zealand following the release of the films. Tourism New Zealand has said it anticipated any region or business with a connection to the locations of The Hobbit trilogy was likely to see an increase in visitors seeking a Middle-earth experience.

Instal Middlemarch