Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is centered on the lives of the residents of Middlemarch, a fictitious Midlands town, from 1829 onwards-the years preceding the 1832 Reform Act.

The narrative is variably considered to consist of three or four plots of unequal emphasis: the life of Dorothea Brooke; the career of Tertius Lydgate; the courtship of Mary Garth by Fred Vincy; and the disgrace of Nicholas Bulstrode.

Significant themes include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education.