"MIDDLEMARCH" AND ME
A hometown friend who is a respected historian is currently writing a book about a controversial local figure who went from being our town's most promising scholar to being the only US physician since the doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth to be arrested for accessory to murder after the fact. Other parts of his trajectory included being pursued by the FBI, jail, and lastly, an honored career as a humanitarian. What could my small efforts to help her with her research have to do with my belated reading of "Middlemarch"? Some years ago, we found this 1977 edition at a charity book sale. Like its heroine, it was patiently waiting for the right moment. MIDDLETOWN, MEDDLEMARCH, MIDDLEMARCH Or should the order be reversed? I'm sticking with the first because I come from Middletown, and have only now, in my 68th year, come to "Middlemarch." Although the book was published in 1871 in a country far from mine, the universal applicab...