Middlemarch — George Eliot (1871)

Middlemarch, frequently hailed as the greatest novel in the English language by wide critical consensus, offers a panoramic examination of provincial English life through two parallel stories of idealistic marriage failure. Mary Ann Evans (writing as George Eliot) develops 10 major characters with a compassion, intelligence, and complexity that surpasses typical Victorian works. The novel has sold over 2 million copies since 1900 and remains a staple of academic curricula worldwide.