Unexpectedly adored this novel. It took me a while to get into it. I love sibling dynamics in novels.

In The Mill on the Floss George Eliot drew on her experience to explore, with astonishing perception, the moral complexities of human choise and action.

As Maggie Tulliver grows into adulthood she finds her provincial settings increasingly oppressive, and the ensuing conflict with her cautious brother Tom lies at the heart of the book. She is neither able to break free from her community nor adapt to it. George Eliot's profound understanding and portrayal of her heroine's plight has rarely been equalled in English fiction.

First: A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace.

Last: "In their death they were not divided."