George Eliot's masterful portrayal of rural nineteenth-century society, with a new introduction by Professor Kathryn Hughes.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

With precise plotting underpinned by a wise understanding of human nature, George Eliot's most autobiographical novel gives a wonderful evocation of rural life and the complicated relationship between siblings.

This edition of The Mill on the Floss features an introduction by Professor Kathryn Hughes.

Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom enjoy a rural childhood on the banks of the river Floss. But the approach of adulthood created tension: intelligent and fiery Maggie tests the boundaries of nineteenth-century society in her search for love, while Tom embraces convention and accepts his father's desire for him to become a businessman. Increasingly self-righteous, Tom disapproves of his sister's suitors and when he discovers that she took a fateful boat trip with Stephen Guest, her cousin's fiancé, he turns his back on her. Maggie is ostracized by her beloved brother and her own community, and only through tragic events are the siblings reunited . . .

As one comes back to [Eliot's] books after years of absence they pour out, even against our expectations, the same store of energy and heat, so that we want more than anything to idle in the warmth