The Mill on the Floss is a novel by George Eliot

George Eliot

Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...

 (Mary Ann Evans), first published in three volumes in 1860 by William Blackwood

William Blackwood

William Blackwood was a Scottish publisher who founded the firm of William Blackwood & Sons.Blackwood was born of humble parents in Edinburgh. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a firm of booksellers in Edinburgh, and he followed his calling also in Glasgow and London for several years...

. The first American edition was by Thomas Y. Crowell Co.

Thomas Y. Crowell Co.

Thomas Y. Crowell Co. was a publishing company founded by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1834 in the United States.-History:The company began publishing books in 1876, and in 1882 T. Irving Crowell joined his father in the business. Jeremiah Osborne Crowell became the sales manager.In 1909, after Thomas Y....

, New York.

The novel details the lives of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, a brother and sister growing up at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss at its junction with the more minor River Ripple near the village of St. Ogg's in England, probably in the 1820s after the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 but before the Reform Act of 1832

Reform Act 1832

The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...

.