George Eliot as historian : the social and political background to Middlemarch

Since its first publication in 1871-2, George Eliot's Middlemarch, has been studied and re-studied by literary critics of all castes and in the course of their resulting assessments many extreme statements have been made about its factual and historical veracity. This thesis has attempted to modify and rationalize such statements by the use of historical rather than literary criteria and to balance extravagant assertions about Eliot's ability as historian and social observer. From an historical point of view, Middlemarch contains a wealth of material for the scholar to study, covering as it does the period of agitation leading up to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act and comprehending the whole stratum of provincial society at that time. For the purpose of this thesis, it was impossible to cover all of the diverse elements included in the novel and many aspects which could well have found a place have of necessity been omitted. Some of these are the phenomenon of the successful Businessman of Evangelical leanings embodied in Mr. Bulstrode, the concept of early nineteenth century philanthropy as developed through the characters of Dorothea, Mr. Brooke and Mr. Bulstrode and the suggestion of an element of "women's liberation" in the outspokenness of the elder Miss Brooke. The aim of this thesis has been to discover, by means of a comparison with contemporary materials, whether Middlemarch may with Justice be used by the historian as a piece of documentary evidence and, following on this, whether any novel may be used in this way