Moving accidents by flood and field: The arable and tidal worlds of George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss is often regarded as a pastoral work. In fact, arable landscape informs the language, themes and events of George Eliot’s novel. This essay recovers the original agri-environmental world described by Eliot and shows how the lives of the Tullivers and the fate of Dorlcote Mill are driven by the complex interaction of arable and tidal forces. Eliot’s meticulous research into these arable and tidal worlds is reconstructed and it is argued that in this work the novelist reflects on the impact of free market economics on food production and distribution, on agricultural livings and rural communities and on river and land management across Britain.