Middlemarch (Penguin Drop Caps)

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers featuring cover art by type superstar Jessica Hische

It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and gift-worthy hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet by superstar type designer Jessica Hische, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. A collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series design encompasses foil-stamped paper-over-board cases in a rainbow-hued spectrum across all twenty-six book spines and a decorative stain on all three paper edges. Penguin Drop Caps debuts with an A for Jane Austen s Pride and Prejudice, a B for Charlotte Brontë s Jane Eyre, and a C for Willa Cather s My Ántonia, and continues with more classics from Penguin.

E is for Eliot. Considered one the masterpieces of realist fiction, George Eliot s novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town s equilibrium Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea s husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the town s elite. Middlemarch displays George Eliot s clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.