Editing Middlemarch (section)

===Contemporary reviews===
''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|The Examiner]]'', ''[[The Spectator]]'' and ''[[Athenaeum (British magazine)|Athenaeum]]'' reviewed each of the eight books that comprise ''Middlemarch'' as they were published from December 1871 to December 1872;{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=13}} such reviews speculated on the eventual direction of the plot and responded accordingly.{{sfnp |Swinden |1972 |p=14}} Contemporary response to the novel was mixed. Writing as it was being published, the ''Spectator'' reviewer R. H. Hutton criticised it for what he saw as its melancholic quality.<ref>H. R. Hutton, "Review of ''Middlemarch''", ''Spectator'', 1 June 1872.</ref> ''Athenaeum'', reviewing it after "serialisation", found the work overwrought and thought it would have benefited from hastier composition.{{efn |The novel was completed before being published in eight instalments (volumes).}}<ref>''Athenaeum'', 7 December 1872.</ref> ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'' reviewer W. L. Collins saw as the work's most forceful impression its ability to make readers sympathise with the characters.<ref>W. L. Collins, ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine'', December 1872.</ref> Edith Simcox of ''Academy'' offered high praises, hailing it as a landmark in fiction owing to the originality of its form; she rated it first amongst Eliot's œuvre, which meant it "has scarcely a superior and very few equals in the whole wide range of English fiction".<ref name=simcox>{{Cite news |last1=Simcox |first1=Edith |title=Review of ''Middlemarch'' |work=Academy |date=January 1873}} (Reprinted from Swinden, Patrick, ed. [1972], pp. 41–47).</ref>

{{Quote box |width=30em |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |align=left|quote="What do I think of 'Middlemarch'?" What do I think of glory – except that in a few instances this "mortal has already put on immortality." George Eliot was one. The mysteries of human nature surpass the "mysteries of redemption," for the infinite we only suppose, while we see the finite. |salign=left |source=Emily Dickinson, Letter to her cousins Louise and Fannie Norcross<ref>Robert N. Linscott, 1959. ''Selected Poems and Letters of Emily Dickinson'', Anchor Books, Random House, New York, p. 242.</ref>}}

Henry James presented a mixed opinion, ''Middlemarch'', according to him, was "at once one of the strongest and one of the weakest of English novels&nbsp;... ''Middlemarch'' is a treasure-house of details, but it is an indifferent whole". Among the details, his greatest criticism ("the only eminent failure in the book") was of the character of Ladislaw, who he felt was an insubstantial hero-figure as against Lydgate. The scenes between Lydgate and Rosamond he especially praised for their psychological depth – he doubted whether there were any scenes "more powerfully real... [or] intelligent" in all English fiction.{{sfnp |James |1873}}
[[Thérèse Bentzon]], for the ''[[Revue des deux Mondes]]'', was critical of ''Middlemarch''. Although finding merit in certain scenes and qualities, she faulted its structure as "made up of a succession of unconnected chapters, following each other at random... The final effect is one of an incoherence which nothing can justify." In her view, Eliot's prioritisation of "observation rather than imagination... inexorable analysis rather than sensibility, passion or fantasy" means that she should not be held amongst the first ranks of novelists.<ref name=bentzon>{{Cite news |last1=Bentzon |first1=TH |title=Le Roman de la vie de province en angleterre |work=Revue des deux Mondes |issue=103 |date=February 1873}} (Reprinted from Swinden, Patrick, ed. [1972], pp. 56–60).</ref> The German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], who read ''Middlemarch'' in a translation owned by his mother and sister, derided the novel for construing suffering as a means of expiating the debt of sin, which he found characteristic of "little moralistic females à la Eliot".<ref>Thomas J. Joudrey. "The Defects of Perfectionism: Nietzsche, Eliot, and the Irrevocability of Wrong." ''Philological Quarterly'' 96.1 (2017), pp. 77–104.</ref>

Despite the divided contemporary response, ''Middlemarch'' gained immediate admirers: in 1873, the poet [[Emily Dickinson]] expressed high praise for the novel, exclaiming in a letter to a friend: "What do I think of ''Middlemarch''? What do I think of glory."<ref>Megan Armknecht. "The Weight of 'Glory': Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, and Women's Issues in ''Middlemarch''." ''Criterion'' 9.1 (2016): 35–46.</ref><ref>Eleanor Elson Heginbotham. "'What do I think of glory –': Dickinson's Eliot and ''Middlemarch''." ''Emily Dickinson Journal'' 21.2 (2012): 20–36.</ref><ref name=litencyc>{{Cite web |last1=Uglow |first1=Nathan |title=George Eliot: Middlemarch |url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3605 |website=The Literary Encyclopedia |publisher=The Literary Dictionary Company |access-date=5 April 2015 |archive-date=10 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150410155657/http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3605 |url-status=live }}{{subscription required}}</ref>
{{Quote box |width=30em |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |align=right  |quote=The immediate success of ''Middlemarch'' may have been proportioned rather to the author's reputation than to its intrinsic merits. [The novel]&nbsp;... seems to fall short of the great masterpieces which imply a closer contact with the world of realities and less preoccupation with certain speculative doctrines. |salign=right |source=—[[Leslie Stephen]], ''George Eliot'' (1902)<ref name="stephen1902">{{Cite book |last1=Stephen |first1=Leslie |author-link1=Leslie Stephen |title=George Eliot |date=1902 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |pages=172–184 |isbn=9781108019620 |edition=2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7F4RV8BUh1cC |access-date=25 September 2020 |archive-date=15 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115134618/https://books.google.com/books?id=7F4RV8BUh1cC |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

In separate centuries, [[Florence Nightingale]] and [[Kate Millett]] remarked on the eventual subordination of Dorothea's own dreams to those of her admirer, Ladislaw.<ref>[[Kate Millett|Millet]] (1972), ''Sexual Politics p.139''; Nightingale quoted in ''The Cambridge Companion to George Eliot'', "George Eliot and Gender", Kate Flint, 2001.</ref> Indeed, the ending acknowledges this and mentions how unfavourable social conditions prevented her from fulfilling her potential.