Meredith was purported to have said, "he is all of us" of the main character in his most enduring novel, The Egoist, published in 1879. The novel tells the "tragicomical" story of Sir Willoughby Pattene's single-minded pursuit of a marriageable woman. Sympathy, however, lies with Clara Middleton, one of Pattene's choices, and how this Victorian woman use her strength of will to break off an unwelcome engagement.