Most of my recommendations for #ReadWomen2014 have been for relatively contemporary authors, or at least 20th century authors, but this week we're delving a little further back. I've already taken the time to strongly endorse Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch, but as I mentioned then, that book means nothing if you haven't already read Middlemarch, so consider this your second warning. I started it in the fall of last year and although ti's a meaty novel that takes some time to wade through, it was a really rewarding read. It was a world that I just couldn't get enough of, and I was so sad to leave it. It's definitely one of those books I'll revisit again and again, just as Rebecca Mead discusses.
My first foray into George Eliot was with Silas Marner, her shortest book which many people have to read in high school/college. I read it on my own because it seemed a good way to test the Eliot waters without committing to her longer books. At the time I read it, I really really loved it, but now that I've read Middlemarch, it is so obviously an inferior book. If you were to read Sila Marner, which I think you should, you should definitely read it first because it's a lovely little book but it just doesn't compare to her other titles.
I already own a whole stack of her novels and my plan is to slowly knock them out over the course of a few years, which I am really looking forward to.