The Mill on the Floss is a novel by George Eliot, first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood. The first American edition was published by Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York.Spanning a period of 10 to fifteen years, the novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, siblings growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The mill is situated at the junction of the River Floss and therefore the more minor River Ripple, near the village of St Ogg's in Lincolnshire, England. Both the river and therefore the village are fictional.The novel begins within the late 1820s or early 1830s - several historical references place the events within the book after the Napoleonic Wars but before the Reform Act of 1832.[2] (In chapter 3, the character Mr Riley is described as an "auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago", placing the opening events of the novel in approximately 1829, thirty years before the novel's composition in 1859. In chapter 8, Mr Tulliver and Mr Deane discuss the Duke of Wellington and his "conduct within the Catholic Question", a conversation that would only happen after 1828, when Wellington became Prime Minister and supported a bill for Catholic Emancipation). The novel includes many autobiographical elements and reflects the disgrace that Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) experienced while during a lengthy relationship with a husband, George Henry Lewes.Bintry Watermill, which depicted Dorlcote Mill within the 1997 TV series.Maggie Tulliver is that the protagonist and therefore the story begins when she is 9 years old, 13 years into her parents' marriage. Her relationship together with her older brother Tom, and her romantic relationships with Philip Wakem (a hunchbacked, sensitive and intellectual friend) and with Stephen Guest (a vivacious young socialite in St Ogg's and assumed fiancé of Maggie's cousin Lucy Deane) constitute the foremost significant narrative threads.Tom and Maggie have an in depth yet complex bond, which continues throughout the novel. Their relationship is coloured by Maggie's desire to recapture the unconditional love of her father before his death. Tom's pragmatic and reserved nature clashes with Maggie's idealism and fervor for intellectual gains and knowledge . Various family crises, including bankruptcy, Mr Tulliver's rancorous relationship with Philip Wakem's father, which ends up within the loss of the mill and Mr Tulliver's untimely death, intensify Tom's and Maggie's differences and highlight their love for every other. to assist his father repay his debts, Tom leaves school to enter a lifetime of the business. He eventually finds a measure of success, restoring the family's former estate. Maggie languishes within the impoverished Tulliver home, her intellectual aptitude wasted in her socially isolated state. She passes through a period of tough spirituality, during which she renounces the planet, motivated by her reading of Thomas à Kempis's The Imitation of Christ.This renunciation is tested by a renewed friendship with Philip Wakem, with whom she had developed a friendship while he and Tom were students. Against the needs of Tom and her father - who both despise the Wakems - Maggie secretly meets with Philip and that they choose long walks through the woods. the connection they forge is founded partly in Maggie's heartfelt pity for broken and neglected citizenry but it also is an outlet for her intellectual romantic desires. Philip's and Maggie's attraction is, in any case, inconsequential due to the family antipathy. Philip manages to coax a pledge of affection from Maggie. When Tom discovers the connection between the 2, he forces his sister to renounce Philip, and with him her hopes of experiencing the broader, more cultured world he represents.