AS FANS OF MASTERPIECE THEatre well know, adaptations of great books sometimes make for less than great viewing. Anyone out there in favor of some Bleak House reruns? All the more reason to cheer, therefore, when one of public TV's bundles from Britain elegantly packages a literary classic.
Middlemarch is a six-part rendering of George Eliot's monumental novel that premieres on Masterpiece Theatre this Sunday. The mini-series, which cost some $10 million to make, was a recent critical and popular success in Britain, leading to lectures and even debates on the novel. As a result of the show, a Penguin paperback...