ABSTRACT
Middlemarch began its life as two separate narratives. George Eliot's journal at the beginning of 1869 refers to the writing of a projected novel called 'Middlemarch' as one of her tasks for the year, and she began writing it in that July. By September she had written the first three chapters of what later becomes the Lydgate strand of the novel, but, distracted and depressed by the illness and death of her partner George Henry Lewes's son, affectionately known as 'Thornie', she made very slow progress. In November of the following year, she began 'Miss Brooke' as a separate story, and made much more rapid progress with this, reaching the middle of chapter 10 by the end of the year, and chapter 18 by March 1871. By this time, it was clear to her that the two stories could be intertwined, and by the end ofJune books 1 and 2 were finished, and the rest of the novel was clear in her mind. It was also clear to her that she needed something longer than the more usual three-volume novel to provide her with the space her new narrative required. This prompted Lewes - who for this novel, as for the rest of her fiction, acted as Eliot's literary agent - to write to her publisher Blackwood, with a proposal that Midd/emarch be published in eight instalments (that is, in eight books, which he called 'half-volume parts') at two-monthly intervals, with final publication in four volumes, rather than the customary three:
MrsLewes finds that she will require 4 volumes for her story, not 3. I winced at the idea at first, but the story must not be spoiled for want of space, and as you have more than once spoken of the desirability of inventing some mode of circumventing the Librariesand making the public buy instead of borrowing, I have devised the following scheme ... namely to publish in half-volumeparts... Each part would have a certain unity and completeness in itself with separate titles. Thus the work is called Middlemarch.
