Introduction and Notes by Dinny Thorold, University of WestminsterFelix Holt is set, like Middlemarch in the Midlands at the time of the Great Reform Bill of 1832. This novel brings social and political history vividly to life with its magnificent rendering of provincial England in the ferment of electioneering. Against this background Eliot tells a love story and weaves a plot which has many elements of the sensation novel, such as illegitimacy, blackmail, and the discovery of an heiress, where suspense is maintained until the end.