Middlemarch is s the great epic of nineteenth-century English literature, and comes closest to matching the success of Tolstoy and Turgenev's Russian sagas. As such, to summarize the novel would be practically impossible but, like its Russian counterparts, it nonetheless follows several threads of storyline. Middlemarch is a novel about youthful rebellion: Dorothea, a young girl, decides to marry an aged academic, Casaubon, against the advice of her friends and family. Casaubon dies and Dorothea marries his nephew, Will. The novel is set in a small town, Middlemarch, and traces the arrival of a young doctor, Lydgate, in the town and the start of his practice. Rosamund, a woman who has spent her life in Middlemarch, marries Lydgate, and the two are taken in by the corrupt banker Bulstrode. Fred Vincey waits to inherit money from Featherstone, a rich neighbour. When this fails, he drifts towards joining the clergy and finally marries Mary Garth. The novel is concerned with the fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s and about how various human passions: heroism, egotism, love, and lust interrelate within this society.