Lydgate has become entranced by Rosamond Vincy, who is known as the most beautiful young woman in Middlemarch. The attendees include Tertius Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor who has just moved to Middlemarch and hopes to bring cutting-edge medical reform to the area. Later, a dinner party is held at Tipton in advance of the wedding. Brooke, and Casaubon run into Casaubon’s second cousin, Will Ladislaw, who is carrying a sketchbook. While on a premarital visit to Casaubon’s house Lowick Manor, Dorothea, Celia, Mr. He and Dorothea remain friends and he continues to make regular visits to Tipton. Sir James is also shocked and horrified at Dorothea’s decision, but more out of concern for her than pity for himself. Cadwallader are both hesitant about the idea of Dorothea accepting Casaubon, but they eventually relent, saying that Dorothea can do what she wants. Dorothea is so happy that she bursts into tears and drops to the floor.

Brooke tells Dorothea that Casaubon is interested in marrying soon after, Casaubon sends Dorothea a rather stiff, awkward letter in which he proposes to her. Sir James is enthusiastic about seeing Dorothea’s plans for the cottages come to fruition, whereas Casaubon seems uninterested in them.

At dinner, she takes a liking to Casaubon, whom she believes resembles John Locke and must be a “great man.” She fantasizes that he will propose to her and imagines a life wherein she can fulfil her intellectual ambitions through helping him finish The Key to All Mythologies. Casaubon has spent multiple decades working on an ambitious work of religious history, The Key to All Mythologies.ĭorothea has been passionately at work on architectural designs for cottages for the tenant farmworkers in Tipton. Edward Casaubon, a 45-year-old bachelor and theological scholar. Sir James Chettam is courting Dorothea, and comes to dinner at Tipton along with Rev. Dorothea Brooke is a highly intelligent, very religious young woman from a “good family.” She and her sister Celia are orphans and live under the care of their unmarried uncle, Mr.

Middlemarch by George Eliot