The Mill On The Floss

George Eliot

• Publisher: Caelwick Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9783050505732
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

Published in 1860, The Mill on the Floss was the second novel published by George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans). Set in the late 1820s or early 1830s, it tells the story of two young people, Tom and Maggie Tulliver, from their childhood into early adulthood. Their father, Jeremy Tulliver, owns Dorlcote Mill on the river Floss, and the children grow to adolescence in relative comfort. However Mr. Tulliver is litigious and initiates an unwise legal suit against a local solicitor, Mr. Wakem. The suit is thrown out and the associated costs throw the Tulliver family into poverty, and they lose possession of the mill. The main character of the novel is Maggie Tulliver, an intelligent and passionate child and young woman, whose mental, romantic, and moral struggles we follow closely. As in Eliot's other novels, the author shows a realistic and sympathetic understanding of human behavior. The Mill on the Floss is regarded as a classic of English literature, and has been made into both a film and a television series. George Eliot (died 1880) was one of the most distinguished authors of the Victorian age. Their work has endured across generations and continues to be read and studied worldwide. As a work of classic literary fiction, The Mill On The Floss exemplifies the narrative craft and social insight that defined great storytelling of its era. Literary fiction of this period was characterized by careful attention to character psychology, social milieu, and the moral questions that animated public discourse.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Outside Dorlcote Mill
• Mr Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom
• Mr Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom
• Tom is Expected
• Tom Comes Home
• The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming
• Enter the Aunts and Uncles
• Mr Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side
• To Garum Firs
• Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected
• Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow
• Mr Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life
• Tom’s “First Half”
• The Christmas Holidays
• The New Schoolfellow
• “The Young Idea”
• Maggie’s Second Visit
• A Love-Scene
• The Golden Gates Are Passed
• What Had Happened at Home
• Mrs Tulliver’s Teraphim, or Household Gods
• The Family Council
• A Vanishing Gleam
• Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster
• Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-Knife
• How a Hen Takes to Stratagem
• Daylight on the Wreck
• An Item Added to the Family Register
• A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet
• The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns
• A Voice from the Past
• In the Red Deeps
• Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob’s Thumb
• The Wavering Balance
• Another Love-Scene
• The Cloven Tree
• The Hard-Won Triumph
• A Day of Reckoning
• A Duet in Paradise
• First Impressions
• Confidential Moments
• Brother and Sister
• Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster
• Illustrating the Laws of Attraction
• Philip Re-enters
• Wakem in a New Light
• Charity in Full-Dress
• The Spell Seems Broken
• In the Lane
• A Family Party
• Borne Along by the Tide
• Waking
• The Return to the Mill
• St Ogg’s Passes Judgment
• Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us
• Maggie and Lucy
• The Last Conflict
• Conclusion