Length25h 39m
About this audiobook
The Mill on the Floss is George Eliot's second novel, and was published in 1860, only a year after her first, Adam Bede. It centres on the lives of brother and sister Tom and Maggie Tulliver growing up on the river Floss near the town of St. Oggs (a fictionalised version of Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, England) in the years following the Napoleonic Wars, with both as young adults eventually meeting a tragic end by the Mill which the family holds so dear. In large measure, their lives are dominated by their father, a successful miller brought down by his inability to resist settling arguments in a court of law. Character differences between Tom and Maggie - he dour and rigid of thought, she lively and impulsive - seem to matter little in childhood, but eventually strain their relationship beyond breaking point. It is Maggie, however, who is the dominant character of the book, arguably one of the great characters of 19th century literature. Each of her relationships is vital to the narrative: with her parents, with Tom above all, but on a romantic level with Philip Wakem, the sensitive hunchbacked son of her father's (and Tom's) bitterest enemy, and with charming and urbane Stephen Guest, fiance of Maggie's cousin Lucy Deane. Maggie's life is changed utterly by an impulsive elopement which she turns back from, but too late to stop the inevitable abuse and contempt. This is a semi-autobiographical reflection of the vilification which George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) herself had to endure while openly living with a married man, a time when her brother was willing to communicate with her only through lawyers. Eliot writes of character and relationships with an insight and sharp detail that few authors have ever equaled. It's a long book, but you will appreciate it for its depth
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Other
Length25 hrs 39 mins
Narrated byTom Denholm
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateJun 15, 2022
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Outside Dorlcote Mill
33A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet
2Mr Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution About Tom
34The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns
3Mr Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom
35A Voice from the Past, Pt. 1
4Tom Is Expected
36A Voice from the Past, Pt. 2
5Tom Comes Home
37In the Red Deeps
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6The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming
38Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb, Pt. 1
7Enter the Aunts and Uncles, Pt. 1
39Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb, Pt. 2
8Enter the Aunts and Uncles, Pt. 2
40The Wavering Balance
9Mr Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side
41Another Love-Scene
10To Garum Firs
42The Cloven Tree
11Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected
43The Hard-Won Triumph
12Maggie Tries to Run Away from Her Shadow
44A Day of Reckoning
13Mr and Mrs Glegg at Home
45A Duet in Paradise
14Mr Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life
46First Impressions
15Tom's ''First Half'', Pt. 1
47Confidential Moments
16Tom's ''First Half'', Pt. 2
48Brother and Sister
17The Christmas Holidays
49Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster
18The New Schoolfellow
50Illustrating the Laws of Attraction
19'The Young Idea''
51Philip Re-enters
20Maggie's Second Visit
52Wakem in a New Light
21A Love-Scene
53Charity in Full-Dress
22The Golden Gates Are Passed
54The Spell Seems Broken
23What Had Happened at Home
55In the Lane
24Mrs Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods
56A Family Party
25The Family Council, Pt. 1
57Borne Along by the Tide
26The Family Council, Pt. 2
58Waking
27A Vanishing Gleam
59The Return to the Mill
28Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster
60St Ogg's Passes Judgment
29Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice Against the Present of a Pocket-Knife
61Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us
30How a Hen Takes to Strategem
62Maggie and Lucy
31Daylight on the Wreck
63The Last Conflict, and Conclusion
32An Item Added to the Family Register
