A Newberry Library adult education class. Spring 2026. Tuesdays 2:00-4:00pm (CT) by Zoom, March 31 through May 5. Registration information here.
A novel of childhood development that calls to mind Jane Eyre or David Copperfield, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss is an unflinching and emotionally challenging exploration of childhood aspirations, cultural barriers, and psychological struggles. This class invites participants to immerse themselves in the world of the novel’s characters, themes, ideas, and techniques by reading it serially in manageable parts. Six sessions.
Materials List
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot. Penguin Classics edition. ISBN 978-0141439624. For the first session, please read chapters 1-3, but do not read the introduction.
Class Description
The Mill on the Floss is structured around the life of Maggie Tulliver, growing up in a small town as something of an outsider to both her family and her environment. With autobiographical elements that would not return for any other work by Eliot, The Mill on the Floss explores Maggie’s intense and troubled relationship with her brother, the limiting cultural traditions that forecast her future, and the varying aspirations of the other young adults around her.
Of particular importance for this class is the depth of Eliot’s narrative point of view. The novel explores, with startling candor, scenes of childhood trauma and joy, frustrated educational experiences, intentional and innocent cruelties, and the insistence on a humanistic basis of morality.
The Mill on the Floss originally appeared as a complete three-volume novel in 1860, but for this class we will split up our reading in a way that approximates serial publication. I’ve broken up the novel into six manageable sections, each no longer than approximately 100 pages. In this way, students will work their way through the novel in stages. All good novels actually teach readers how to read them, and serial assignments allow us to benefit over time from the novel’s own lessons, identifying aspects of technique and form that enhance an ongoing active experience of the novel.
Each of the weekly sessions will focus on the features, plot developments, and specific themes of the installment at hand. I will also discuss artwork and supplementary material specifically related to each installment. In this way, we will build an ongoing dialogue with Eliot’s novel, with the author’s life and her remarkable literary technique, and with the connections between Victorian culture and our own.
A final syllabus and the first of our weekly study guides will be emailed one week ahead of the first session. The study guides will offer suggestions for focal points in the upcoming reading, key quotations from the novel, spoiler-free excerpts from critical materials, and tips on what to look for in subsequent installments. These tips include suggestions for noting particular plot points, character changes, and specific “must-read” sections, among other hints for active reading.
No AI technology will be used in the development or presentation of lectures and class materials.
Schedule
Week 1: Chapters 1.1-1.3 (Book One, chapter 1 to Book One, chapter 3)
Supplementary theme: Eliot’s Narrator
Week 2: Chapters 1.4-1.13
Supplementary theme: Childhood
Week 3: Chapters 2.1-3.4
Supplementary theme: Education and Frustration
Week 4: Chapters 3.5-5.2
Supplementary theme: Love and Relationships
Week 5: Chapters 5.3-6.8
Supplementary theme: Opportunities in Victorian Life
Week 6: Chapters 6.8-7.5 (and conclusion).
Please read the novel’s introduction by A. S. Byatt after finishing the novel.
Supplementary theme: Conclusions
Illustration: “Maggie Tulliver in the Boat,” by F. S. Church for the Handy Volume Edition of The Mill on the Floss (1880, Boston: Dana Estes & Company). https://babel.hathitrust.org
