23 h 49 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 23 h 49 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the brother you love most cannot understand the person you long to become?
At Dorlcote Mill beside the River Floss, Maggie Tulliver grows up hungry for learning, love, and her brother Tom’s approval. Clever and impulsive, she feels every scolding deeply. Tom trusts rules and practical work. Their bond shapes a childhood full of small joys and sharp hurts.
In George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, family pride puts a household at risk, while money and reputation shape the judgments of St Ogg’s. As Maggie grows, her wish to live fully presses against duty and convention. Loving her family does not make choosing her own path any easier.
What you’ll discover
- A complicated sibling bond Follow Maggie and Tom through the tenderness, pride, and misunderstanding that bind them together.
- Childhood taken seriously Enter a world where a child’s shame and longing carry the full weight of feeling.
- A woman hungry for more Meet Maggie, whose desire for learning and emotional freedom strains against her family’s expectations.
- Family life with sharp edges Discover the dry humour of watchful aunts, household pride, and firmly held opinions.
- Love measured against duty Explore the painful space between belonging to others and remaining true to yourself.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love close portraits of family life, quick-tempered heroines and honest moral choices, and for anyone who remembers a brother or sister from childhood.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A miller plans a clever future for Tom
- Maggie adores Tom and keeps failing him
- The Dodson aunts judge Maggie at every turn
- Maggie runs off and Tom goes to school
- Law and pride bring the Tullivers down
- Tom works while Maggie learns to give things up
- Philip, the Red Deeps and a promise to Tom
- Lucy, Stephen and a temptation of music
- A boat drifts away and St Ogg's passes judgement
- Duty against desire, and the ties of childhood
- A humorous voice, a river and a gathering storm
Who’s who
- Maggie TulliverA fiery, bookish girl who loves her brother above all and longs to be good, though her feelings pull her in every direction.
- Tom TulliverMaggie's older brother, a proud, practical and just boy who works to repay his father's debts and win back the mill.
- Mr TulliverThe hot-tempered miller of Dorlcote Mill, proud of his daughter's brains, determined that his son be educated, and bitter against the lawyer Wakem.
- Mrs TulliverA gentle, fretful woman, the weakest of the Dodson sisters, who cares about her linen and her family's good name.
- Philip WakemA gifted, sensitive, crooked-backed artist and the lawyer's son, who loves Maggie and hopes to bring the two families together.
- Lucy DeaneMaggie's pretty, generous cousin, who delights in other people's happiness and is courted by Stephen Guest.
- Stephen GuestThe confident, musical son of a rich merchant family, who is drawn to Maggie while courting Lucy.
- Bob JakinA talkative, loyal pedlar, once Tom's rough boyhood friend, who remains steadfast to the Tullivers through every misfortune.
Formats and delivery
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- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
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The Mill on the Floss
by George Eliot · 1860
A dark-eyed girl at a mill on the Floss loves her stubborn brother Tom more than she can bear.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readfrançais
Excellent
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In short
What happens to a clever, fiery girl who loves her brother more than anyone, when the world keeps asking her to be someone else? The Mill on the Floss opens on a February afternoon at Dorlcote Mill, where nine-year-old Maggie Tulliver stands by the water while her parents argue by the fire about the future of her brother Tom.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A miller plans a clever future for Tom
At Dorlcote Mill, beside the river Ripple, Mr Tulliver tells his wife Bessy that he wants Tom to have a good education. He does not want a miller for a son. He wants a young man who can stand up to lawyers, because he finds legal business puzzling and distrusts the men who conduct it.
He asks his friend Mr Riley, an auctioneer, to recommend a school. Riley knows almost nothing of the clergyman he names, but he praises him with great confidence, simply because he has been asked. Meanwhile Maggie sits with a big book on her knee and explains its pictures to Mr Riley with fearless zeal. Her father is proud of her sharpness and sad about it in the same breath. Her mother despairs of her tangled hair.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1860
- Language
- français
- Reading time
- 15 h 30 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mill-on-the-floss.
Eliot, G. (2026). The mill on the Floss. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mill-on-the-floss (Original work published 1860)
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mill-on-the-floss.
@book{eliot2026mill,
author = {Eliot, George},
title = {The Mill on the Floss},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mill-on-the-floss},
note = {First published 1860}
}
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What is The Mill on the Floss about?
It follows Maggie and Tom Tulliver from childhood at Dorlcote Mill to adulthood. Their father's lawsuit ruins the family, and Maggie struggles between love, duty and loyalty to her brother while the small town of St Ogg's judges her.
Who is Maggie Tulliver in the novel?
Maggie is the clever, passionate daughter of the miller. She loves books, her brother Tom and the river, and she is impulsive and eager to be good. Her choices between love and duty drive most of the story.
Is The Mill on the Floss based on a true story?
It is a work of fiction, published in 1860. George Eliot drew on her own childhood memories of a mill, a river and a close bond with her brother, but the characters and events are invented.
The author
George Eliot
1819–1880 · English novelist
George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, essayist, poet and journalist. She was born in Warwickshire in 1819 and later lived in London, where she died in 1880. Her novels include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Middlemarch (1871–1872).
More by George Eliot
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