So there was an illuminating article about Middlemarch in the New Statesman last month, by Johanna Thomas-Corr, called 'Why Middlemarch still matters'. Lots to think about there, especially when she defines the main theme of the book: 'Middlemarch is surely the greatest novel ever written about disappointment, sordid, meagre or otherwise: disappointment with your spouse, your children, your elders, your siblings, your employers, your politicians and, most cuttingly, yourself. Dorothea peers into Casaubon’s soul and realises there’s not much to see; Lydgate realises the “blank unreflecting surface” of his wife’s mind; Casaubon realises he might die with nothing to show for his scholarly labours; Rosamond realises she isn’t actually at the centre of everyone else’s world. Then there’s Harriet Bulstrode, who realises the terrible truth of her husband’s past; the Vincys, who realise both their children will make ill-advised marriages; and Will, who realises that his employer, Mr Brooke, isn’t serious about political reform.' Very well put and in this so many Persephone books (eg. Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan or Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge are just an echo of Middlemarch; although when a novel is about the war, eg The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray, it's far more than mere disappointment, it's acceptance that's needed, life has become far too tragic for disappointment to be relevant. The picture above is of Juliet Aubrey as Dorothea in 2010 and here we can announce the excellent news that even as we speak she is recording The Squire by Enid Bagnold as an audiobook.

Because of the excellent 2010 television adaptation of Middlemarch (more on this tomorrow) the place where it was filmed, Stamford, is now always in our mind's eye when we reread it. This photograph is taken from a blog here about visiting Stamford in the footsteps of the film.

This week on the Post we celebrate what some, and we would include ourselves amongst them, think is the greatest novel ever written, certainly it's the greatest novel by a woman: Middlemarch, first published 150 years ago, in the autumn of 1871. This portrait of what has now been acknowledged as George Eliot herself was bought by Andrew Sim of Sim Fine Art in Thame in 2016 and five years later has been accepted by art historians as a genuine drawing of the novelist, details of the Thame discovery here.

And finally Women in a Gymnasium 1940, also at Newcastle, at the Laing. Again this painting doesn't look much at first glance but when you examine it... A reader wrote to tell us: 'This painting brought back so many memories! Although it pre-dates my own mother joining in the late 1950s, it’s a Women’s League of Health and Beauty Class, started by Mary Bagot Stack in the 1930s. I well remember my mother’s white satin top and and black satin knickers. We lived in Carlisle at the time she joined and the League put on demonstrations, with club swinging, ribbons etc. I remember as an eight year-old thinking it all looked wonderfully glamorous!'

July Flower was painted in 1942. It doesn't look much but IRL might be much brighter and more interesting. It was sold for c. £200 in 2008. Here is Eleanor Best's biography taken from Wikipedia: born in Hampshire, she went to the Slade in 1909. She continued to live in London throughout her life and settled in Richmond,  exhibiting at the Royal Academy several times (hardly surprising!) and at many other places. The rest is silence, as we have said so often we have said before. 

Eleanor Best's Winter Sunlight was painted in 1940 and is at the Laing Art Gallery, for whom it was bought by the excellent and still flourishing Contemporary Arts Society.

Woman with a Duster apparently dates from 1925 since it was bought by The Atkinson in Southport. Alas, it probably languishes in their basement, certainly it doesn't come up if you search for it on the Atkinson site. But it should be brought up from the underworld into the light. A painting like this says so much: the apron, the duster, the boring monotony of cleaning, and yet with coal fires the dust was appalling, the symbolism of the clock ticking one's life away while one uses it – to dust, the mirror over the fireplace reflecting a small painting  – oh there is so much to think about. And there it is in the basement.