Middlemarch : A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, first published in instalments from 1871 to 1872 and often considered to be her masterpiece. The novel centres around several groups of characters in the provincial town of Middlemarch and its surrounding villages, between the years 1829 and 1832. This was a time of political change in England, during which Parliamentary reform was proposed to increase the number of eligible voters and to remove "rotten boroughs" - constituencies in which a Member of Parliament could be returned by only one or two voters. The differing political and religious views of some characters form part of the background of the novel. Mr. Brooke, for example, stands for reforms that are unpopular with other members of the town's gentry.