This was an A-level set text, and I read my old copy from the time, which is almost ruined by asinine adolescent observations. I will get a free Kindle copy!
I am still not convinced that the first sentence of this book has a main verb (although Paddy tells me I am wrong), but despite this, it is a wonderful book.
Maggie, I had forgotten, is essentially in love with three men, if you can include her brother as one, Philip Wakem and (I had completely forgotten this bit) Stephen Guest, the handsome beloved of her best friend Lucy.
So, in typical George Eliot manner, she is torn apart by moral dilemmas, duty (and honour versus passion). She is socially disgraced by the elopement with Guest, which is to an extent forced on her, so she becomes a proto Tess d'Urberville, without the pregnancy.
It is, one wants to say, unbearably sad, and despite the difficulty of the prose at times, a lot more interesting than no.169 & no.170. So I'll stick to the 19th century pro-tem.
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