Middlemarch

Wit, irony, pathos and brilliant insight into human nature colour every strand of plot and every beautifully drawn character. Foremost among these are Dorothea Brooke, passionate to use her spirit and talent in a wider world than that tipically afforded to women in the 1830s; Casaubon, the dry, jealous academic; Doctor Lydgate, who dreams of pioneering research into medical science; spoilt, pretty Rosamond Vincy who sees Lydgate as 'a man whom it world be delightful to enslave'.