The Best Linen And Cambric For Her Underclothing

Middlemarch by George Eliot (or rather by Mary Ann Evans writing under that pseudonym) was published in 1871/2 and is about the lives of characters in a fictional English Midlands town. There’s a lot of focus on marriage, family, courtship, hypocrisy and disgrace, and it’s generally considered her best work, but today I’m just going to talk about knickers.

Rosamond Vincy is a young woman who is well educated and stunningly beautiful, but is ambitious and therefore certainly not the heroine of our tale. She can also be described as vain and shallow, far more interested in social niceties and improving her standard of living than actual emotions.

She decides that she is going to marry the handsome town doctor – and he falls in love with her, of course, and proposes.

But there’s a problem – despite his initial agreement, Rosamond’s father decides to revoke his consent to the…