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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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The Mill on the Floss
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(1860) Novel by George *Eliot about Maggie and Tom Tulliver, who grow up together in a mill on the river Floss. Maggie, too intelligent for her environment, makes friends with Philip Wakem, the deformed son of a local lawyer. But her rough father hates the lawyer and with Tom's help brings the friendship to an end. After Tulliver's death, Maggie stays for a while in the nearby town of St Ogg's. There she is made to seem compromised by the behaviour on a boating party of Stephen Guest, due to marry her cousin Lucy, and her brother Tom turns her out of the mill.
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She finds refuge with friends, but when the river suddenly floods she returns to the mill to rescue Tom. Together they are swept to their death in a boat, after reconciliation has brought them into a final embrace – an end too abrupt for many readers, in a novel which begins with such a long and tender account of their childhood.
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