Middlemarch is the prime example of George Eliot's dictum that "interpretations are illimitable," and in this collection of new essays Middlemarch is re-examined as an open text responsive to gaps and fissures, and as resistant to authority as it is to other fixed notions of identity, idealism, and gender. What does the novel omit, and how do the omissions shape what is there? How shall we understand the materiality of the text? What problems does it pose to adaptation? The novel's plasticity becomes a basis for investigation into the multiple forms of expressiveness, and a...

Middlemarch is the prime example of George Eliot's dictum that "interpretations are illimitable," and in this collection of new essays Middlemarch is re-examined as an open text responsive to gaps and fissures, and as resistant to authority as it is to other fixed notions of identity, idealism, and gender. What does the novel omit, and how do the omissions shape what is there? How shall we understand the materiality of the text? What problems does it pose to adaptation? The novel's plasticity becomes a basis for investigation into the multiple forms of expressiveness, and a...