Editing Middlemarch (section)

===''A Study of Provincial Life''===
The fictional town of Middlemarch, North Loamshire, is probably based on [[Coventry]], where Eliot had lived before moving to London. Like Coventry, Middlemarch is described as a silk-ribbon manufacturing town.{{sfnp |Steedman |2001}}{{sfnp |Wynne–Davies |1990 |p=719}}

The subtitle—"A Study of Provincial Life"—has been seen as significant. One critic views the unity of ''Middlemarch'' as achieved through "the fusion of the two senses of 'provincial'":{{sfnp |Wynne–Davies |1990 |p=719}} on the one hand it means geographically "all parts of the country except the capital"; and on the other, a person who is "unsophisticated" or "narrow-minded".<ref>''The Chambers Dictionary'' (13th edition), London,: Chambers Harrap, 2014.</ref> Carolyn Steedman links Eliot's emphasis on provincialism in ''Middlemarch'' to [[Matthew Arnold]]'s discussion of [[social class]] in England in ''[[Culture and Anarchy]]'' essays, published in 1869, about the time Eliot began working on the stories that became ''Middlemarch''. There Arnold classes British society in terms of Barbarians (aristocrats and landed gentry), Philistines (urban middle class) and Populace (working class). Steedman suggests ''Middlemarch'' "is a portrait of [[Philistinism|Philistine Provincialism]]".{{sfnp |Steedman |2001}}

It is worth noting that Eliot went to London, as her heroine Dorothea does at the end of the book. There Eliot achieved fame way beyond most women of her time, whereas Dorothea takes on the role of nurturing Will and her family. Eliot was rejected by her family once she had settled in her common-law relationship with Lewes, and "their profound disapproval prevented her ever going home again". She omitted Coventry from her last visit to [[the Midlands]] in 1855.{{sfnp |Steedman |2001}}