Victorian-era novelist George Eliot (the pen name of female writer Mary Anne Evans) is best known for her multi-layered takes on nineteenth-century British society, such as the masterpiece Middlemarch. She takes on a similarly ambitious task in the engaging tale Romola, albeit one that is set in Renaissance Italy rather than her own era. This historical novel adroitly captures the social upheaval and cultural ferment that arose during this remarkable period.