George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss Annotated George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss is a novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood. The first American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York. Spanning a period of 10 to 15 years, the novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, siblings growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The mill is situated at the junction of the River Floss and the more minor River Ripple, near the village of St Ogg's in Lincolnshire, England. Both the river and the village are fictional. The novel begins in the late 1820s or early 1830s - several historical references place the events in the book after the Napoleonic Wars but before the Reform Act of 1832